Inter Press ServiceCrime & Justice – Inter Press Servicehttp://www.ipsnews.net
News and Views from the Global SouthFri, 13 Sep 2019 21:17:01 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.10A New World? Are the Americas Returning to Old Problems?http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/new-world-americas-returning-old-problems/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-world-americas-returning-old-problems
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/new-world-americas-returning-old-problems/#respondThu, 12 Sep 2019 17:41:38 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163247When I in 1980 first arrived in America it was a new world to me. I went from New York to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and like so many visitors and migrants before me I was overwhelmed by both familiar and strange impressions. Familiar due to books I had read and movies I […]

When I in 1980 first arrived in America it was a new world to me. I went from New York to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and like so many visitors and migrants before me I was overwhelmed by both familiar and strange impressions. Familiar due to books I had read and movies I had seen, strange since I encountered unexpected things and new because both I and several of those I met compared themselves to the “old world”, i.e. Euroasia and parts of Africa.

A sense of uniqueness, admiration for an assumed freshness and difference, can be discerned in the writing of several American writers. Particularly during the 19th century we encounter ideas about wide horizons and an urge to experience and subdue what was assumed to be a wilderness with hidden riches and alluring possibilities. A “Wild West” epitomized in Horace Greeley´s 1865 phrase “Go West, young man, and grow up with the country.” An abundance of examples of exuberant feelings may be found in Walt Whitman´s poetry:

All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, a varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the
march,
Pioneers! O pioneers! 1

In the southern hemisphere, Walt Whitman has his equivalent in Pablo Neruda, who in a poem likened ”his” continent to a beloved woman:

When I look at the shape of America on the map,
my love, it is you I see:
the heights of copper on your head, your slender waist,
with throbbing rivers, sweet hills and meadows
and in the cold of the south your feet in its geography of duplicated gold.
Love, when I touch you not only have my hands explored your delight
but boughs and lands, fruits and water,
the springtime that I love, the desert moon, the breast of the wild dove,
the smoothness of stones worn away by the waters of the seas or the rivers
and the red thickness of the bush where thirst and hunger lie in wait.
And thus my spacious country welcomes me, little America, in your body. 2

However, it is easy to forget that this ”new” and eagerly coveted world was old as well. People coming from Asia settled there between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago. The last wave of migrants before the Europeans came were the Inuit who around 3500 BCE settled in the Arctic areas of North America. Nevertheless, these original settlers suffered drastic changes, their traditional way of life was crushed and transformed by a steady stream of Eurasian and African peoples. Migrants, slaves, and conquerors arrived in the ”new world”, settled and multiplied while the indigenous population plummeted. The newcomers did not only bring with them their culture but also diseases – influenza, pneumonic plagues, typhus, measles, cholera, malaria, mumps, yellow fever, pertussis, and smallpox, killing millions. It is assumed that 90 percent of the indigenous population in the hardest-hit areas died. This was one of the greatest human catastrophes in history, far exceeding The Black Death, which during five years in the mid-fourteen century killed up to one-third of the inhabitants of Europe and Asia. On top of this disaster came repression, expulsion, genocide, and enslavement of the natives. Nevertheless, new ideas and cultural expressions grew out of this cataclysm, cultures mingled and gave rise to something new.

Accordingly, the Americas and the Caribbean do in a certain sense remain a ”new world”, a habitat that has undergone transformations more drastic and profound than those that befell most societies in the ”old world”. The vibrant counter-culture of North America, the magic realism of Latin American authors, revolutionary and radical movements, pedagogy of the oppressed and liberation theology, all accompanied by stirring music mixing rhythms and tunes from all over the world. A mighty wave of cultural inspiration moving from south to north, from east to west. In distant Sweden I and my friends became inspired by such cultural contributions brought to us by movies, books, and records, but not only us, they also reached people from the entire ”third world”, Africa, south and southeast Asia, who in their turn contributed to the emergence of a youthful, radical and global culture.

I still felt this enthusiasm when I, due to various jobs and commitments, traveled back and forth across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The countries I visited still carried unhealed wounds of colonialism, plutocracy, and racism and LAC remains the most unequal region in the world, where injustices undermine the economic potential and wellbeing of its population. Nevertheless, in those days most nations appeared to recuperate from years of dictatorial repression and unpopular foreign interventions. Welfare programs, democracy, and social justice appeared to be on the rise. I even assumed that a new wave of inspiring change could come from the north, from a USA that no longer tried to hinder the development of true democracy south of its border:

It’s coming to America first.
The cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.
It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way.
Democracy is coming to the USA. 3

But alas, people of the USA has chosen the narcissistic plutocrat Donald J. Trump as their president and ”when America sneezes the whole world catches cold” 4 To me the Americas no longer appear to be particularily ”new”, instead they seem to be stuck in bygone times, or are caught by a nostalgia for times that were even worse than they are now.

Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala continoue to suffer from crime and corruption. In January, Guatemala recently expelled a UN-backed anti-corruption commission investigating the affairs of its president Jimmy Morales. Despite Trump’s tough stance on migration, domestic instability and violence in Central American countries are likely to continue to force people to leave their homes. In Nicaragua, a power-drunk and former revolutionary leader, Daniel Ortega, claims that ”thieves” and ”coup-mongers” are creating unrest and sends journalists and protesters to jail. Violent street fighting have caused several hundred deaths thousands more have fled to neighboring Costa Rica. In 1918, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez became the first person to lead Cuba outside the Castro family, which had been in power for more than six decades. However, Cubans are still waiting for democracy while Bermudez and his ministers declare that a new course is not likely to be set, having as their motto ”we are continuity”. The powerful and violent drug cartels of Colombia and Mexico are far from being subdued. Mexico’s new government has repeatedly assured the world about its commitment to combat druglords and rampant violence, but corruption remains endemic in Mexican society, reducing foreign investment and wiping out jobs from small and medium-sized businesses. 5

In Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro blames his country´s inflation rate of 10 million percent on an ”imperialist conspiracy” while hundreds of thousands Venezuelans are fleeing from home and country after a persistent struggle to find food and medicine. Many are arriving in neighboring Colombia, where in spite of positive reporting, drug lords and militias continue to thrive. In Brazil, the newly elected Jair Bolsonaro almost immediately issued a series of executive orders impinging the rights of minorities. Bolsonaro has been praising Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, the most notorious torturer during General Ernesto Geisel´s dictatorship (1974-1979) and it appears as if he is considering oppressive military dictatorships of bygone days to have been beneficial for all, declaring he wants to ”make America great again. I want to make Brazil great, Paraguay great, Bolivia great, Uruguay — all of our countries.” 6 Evo Morales who since 2006 has led Bolivia is trying to continue his hold on power. He recently asked Bolivia´s Supreme Court to nullify the results of a 2016 referendum which rejected his bid to run for a fourth term and forced it to scrap limits for every political office in the country. Argentina´s former president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who in spite of being embroiled in a myriad of ongoing corruption investigations remains popular with voters is expected to be President Mauricio Macri’s main competitor for the presidency in the October elections.

Maybe the Americas is not a new world after all. Like so many nations in the ”old world”, worrisome numbers of their leaders and voters seem to be stuck in an absurd nostalgia for a non-existent golden age of bygone eras.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/new-world-americas-returning-old-problems/feed/0The Geneva Centre to organize on 18 September a panel debate on the rights of the childhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/geneva-centre-organize-18-september-panel-debate-rights-child/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=geneva-centre-organize-18-september-panel-debate-rights-child
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/geneva-centre-organize-18-september-panel-debate-rights-child/#respondTue, 10 Sep 2019 17:18:53 +0000Geneva Centrehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163211(Geneva Centre) – A panel debate will be organized by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue and the Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the UN in Geneva on the enhancement of access to justice for children in the UAE and the implementation of the Convention on the […]

(Geneva Centre) – A panel debate will be organized by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue and the Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the UN in Geneva on the enhancement of access to justice for children in the UAE and the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

The debate entitled “Enhancing access to justice for children in the United Arab Emirates“ will take place on 18 September from 15:00 to 16:30. It will be held in room XXIII, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, on the margins of the 42nd regular session of the Human Rights Council.

The purpose of the conference will be to raise awareness about the need to protect the rights of children in vulnerable situations and to gain deeper understanding of the root causes and risk factors of child abuse and neglect.

In this connection, the conference will take stock of the progress achieved in the UAE to enhance the legal empowerment of children, and identify areas of improvement in line with the provisions set forth in the CRC and other relevant international legal frameworks. It will include the participation of Safety Ambassadors, designed under the precept of the Wadeema Law, who will present the main objectives of Safety Ambassadors programmes and the means available to protect children from any violations they may be subjected to, and raise their awareness of remedies available to address violations.

The panel debate will be opened by HE Obaid Salem Al Zaabi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the UAE to UN in Geneva.

It will be moderated by Dr Umesh Palwankar, Executive Director ad interim of the Geneva Centre.

The conference will benefit from the participation of the following high-level panellists:

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/geneva-centre-organize-18-september-panel-debate-rights-child/feed/0Kashmir: How Modi’s Aggressive ‘Hindutva’ Project has Brought India and Pakistan to the Brink – Againhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink/#respondMon, 09 Sep 2019 02:55:36 +0000Abdullah Yusufhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163160Abdullah Yusuf is a lecturer in politics at the University of Dundee.

The Indian government put an end to large scale protests by revoking the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution. Thousands of troops were deployed and the valley region faced unprecedented lockdown. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

By Abdullah YusufSep 9 2019 (IPS)

August is immensely important in the history of the Asian subcontinent, marking the month that India and Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947. Now, in 2019, it has once again proved momentous, when, ten days before India’s Independence day celebrations, prime minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution.

This latest move was a manifesto pledge from Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which claims that Kashmir’s autonomy has hindered its development while fostering an area of thriving terrorism and smuggling.

Soon, thousands of troops were deployed and the valley region faced unprecedented lockdown. Experts say that Modi’s move to tether the Muslim majority of Kashmir is a gamble that could trigger conflict with Pakistan while reigniting an insurgency that has already cost tens of thousands of lives.

Kashmir: a brief history

Until 1947, Kashmir was a territorially well-defined and functional state that had existed for a century before its seizure by the British in 1846. The British decolonisation of the subcontinent in 1947 was instrumental in creating disorder that pushed Kashmir into a repeated cycle of war and stalemate between Pakistan and India, which have both claimed the region as sovereign territory for the last 70 years.

Today, Kashmir’s geopolitical position and glacial water reserves – which provide fresh water and hydro-electric power to millions – add an extra dimension to the existing sectarian and ideological conflict between India and Pakistan over this small northern region.

The Kashmir issue has resulted in three wars between these two countries – in 1947, 1965 and 1999 – triggering numerous UN Security Council Resolutions – which unequivocally call for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist project

Many within the region feel that Modi’s BJP is brazenly trying to change Kashmir’s ethnic composition to disadvantage India’s Muslim minority by encouraging more Hindus into the region. Since the revocation of Article 370 (which assured the region’s autonomy), Indian Kashmiri leaders who vehemently opposed the decision – including two former chief ministers – have been sent to jail.

Modi’s government has a history of stoking tensions between Hindus and Muslims, with its political rule now focused on “Hindutva”, which translates roughly as “Hindu-ness”, and reframes Hinduism as an identity rather than a theology or religion.

Modi has fostered Hindu nationalism through anti-Islamic rhetoric, accusing Muslim men of attempting to change India’s demographics by seducing Hindu women, as well as encouraging lynching of Muslims falsely accused of eating beef (from the sacred Hindu cow) in BJP controlled states. Clearly, these are tactics designed to expand the notion of Hindutva and further isolate the Muslim population within India. Targeting Kashmir is a crucial part of the strategy.

Dangerous tensions and nuclear options

In the wake of India’s decision to revoke Kashmir’s special status, there are two key questions.

Second, how is the situation affecting the already tense relations between India and Pakistan? India’s land grab comes just five months after a breakdown in relations following claims by India that a Pakistani-based suicide bomber killed 44 Indian soldiers in the Kashmir region, leading to airstrikes by both sides. The situation threatens to reignite this conflict with both countries cautioning the world about the nuclear option.

Addressing a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament on August 6, prime minister Imran Khan briefed lawmakers on the steps his government had taken towards peace in the region. But he maintained the situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir would deteriorate and its neighbour would blame and attack Pakistan.

Days later, Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh stated that India is committed to “no first use” of nuclear weapons, but future policy is dependent on the ever-evolving circumstances. These sentiments have led to international debate over the possibility of nuclear weapons being unleashed.

Parallels with East Timor

With this nuclear threat ever present, the situation in Kashmir is now one of the most dangerous in the world. Since the two countries have consistently failed to make any progress, external help from the international community and the UN is crucial in resolving the conflict and preventing further escalation.

As the world witnessed in the case of East Timor in 1999, independence from Indonesia after two decades of bloodshed was achieved following a referendum held under the stewardship of the UN. This result was not accepted by Indonesia, which launched a scorched-earth campaign, killing more than 1,500 Timorese, displacing nearly half the population, and razing much of East Timor to the ground.

The subsequent progression towards independence and peacebuilding was facilitated by external bodies such as the UN-mandated International Force in East Timor and the Transitional Administration in East Timor, underscoring the importance of support from both the UN and the international community.

The UN didn’t achieve success overnight, but endured through increasing international pressure, combined with a change in the Suharto government. Soon, Indonesia found itself falling out of favour with the international community.

There are parallels here for the Kashmir situation. Although progress may be slow while Modi’s populist BJP remains in power, pressure from the international community would likely go a long way towards pulling both countries back from the brink. In the meantime, while Modi tries to remake India in the BJP’s Hindutva image, for Kashmiris the struggle for self-determination goes on.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink/feed/0What Research Reveals about Drivers of Anti-immigrant Hate Crime in South Africahttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/research-reveals-drivers-anti-immigrant-hate-crime-south-africa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=research-reveals-drivers-anti-immigrant-hate-crime-south-africa
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/research-reveals-drivers-anti-immigrant-hate-crime-south-africa/#respondMon, 09 Sep 2019 02:12:47 +0000Steven Gordonhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163158Steven Gordon works for the Human Sciences Research Council as a senior research specialist. He receives funding from the Centre of Excellence in Human Development at the University of the Witswaterand.

Key leaders from the coalition of faith based organisations, trade unions, NGOs and corporate South Africa marched in 2015, speaking out against xenophobia during a peoples march in Newtown. Courtesy: GCIS

To combat anti-immigrant hate crime, we need to understand its drivers. Scholars at the Human Sciences Research Council have recently made new discoveries about the drivers of anti-immigrant hate crime in South Africa.

But beliefs about the role played by foreign nationals in the country clearly influence how people think about anti-immigrant hate crime. Anti-immigrant statements by politicians also feed into the problem.

Tracking anti-immigrant hate crime

Data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey, conducted annually since 2003, was used. The survey series consists of nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional surveys. It is designed as a time series and is increasingly providing a unique, long-term account of the speed and direction of change of public participation in anti-immigrant behaviour in contemporary South Africa.

Using this data, researchers have found that anti-immigrant hate crime is more widespread than previously thought.

Beginning in 2015, the following item was added in the survey questionnaire:

Have you taken part in violent action to prevent immigrants from living or working in your neighbourhood?

People may be disinclined to disclose this type of potentially incriminating information during face-to-face interviews. But community research suggests that the stigma attached to participation in xenophobic activities may not be as great as we may imagine. Still, the reader should be aware of this possible under-reporting of anti-immigrant behaviour when reviewing the survey’s results.

A minority of the South African adult population reported that they had participated in this form of anti-immigrant aggression. The share of the general public who admitted engaging in violence fluctuated within a very narrow band over the period 2015-2018. This shows the willingness of survey participants to respond to this question varies by only a small margin between the two periods. It also suggests a linear relationship between behavioural intention and attitudes.

The survey results demonstrate the ugly reality of violent anti-immigrant hate crime in South Africa. Although this is an important and dangerous type of prejudice, such crime is not the only form that xenophobia may take. Other forms of peaceful anti-immigrant discrimination are also evident in South African society.

Research has shown that more peaceful forms of anti-immigrant activities are often the first step in a process of escalation that leads to xenophobic violence. Past participation in peaceful anti-immigrant activity (such as demonstrations) was found to be a major determinant of this type of violence.

One of the most troubling findings to have emerged concerned possible participation in anti-immigrant aggression among those who had not taken part before. More than one in ten adults living in South Africa reported in the 2018 survey that they had not taken part in violent action against foreign nationals – but would be prepared to do so.

This finding is quite disturbing given that there may be under-reporting of the propensity for violent action. Anti-immigrant stereotypes were shown to be a robust driver of this kind of behavioural intention. This suggests that anti-immigrant attitudes could have a mobilising effect, spurring individuals towards acts of violent xenophobia.

The results of this study show that millions of ordinary South Africans are prepared to engage in anti-immigrant behaviour. So it is vital that the resources dedicated to combating xenophobia be equal to the size of the problem.

The South African government has a national action plan to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. The progressive measures put forward in the plan include immigrant integration, better law enforcement, civic education and increased immigrant access to constitutionally entitled rights.

Recent research suggests that many of these measures have a degree of public support. The plan was approved in March this year. If it’s to work, it requires adequate resources and support from all sectors of South African society.

Instead of focusing on short-term solutions civil society, foreign governments and the general public must work with the state to progressively implement this plan.

Steven Gordon works for the Human Sciences Research Council as a senior research specialist. He receives funding from the Centre of Excellence in Human Development at the University of the Witswaterand.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/research-reveals-drivers-anti-immigrant-hate-crime-south-africa/feed/0U.N. Criticised for Link-up with Saudi Prince MBShttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/u-n-criticised-link-saudi-prince-mbs/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=u-n-criticised-link-saudi-prince-mbs
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/u-n-criticised-link-saudi-prince-mbs/#respondWed, 04 Sep 2019 06:47:47 +0000James Reinlhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163090The United Nations is under growing pressure to scrap an event it is co-hosting with the private foundation of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has been linked to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. On Tuesday, Sunjeev Bery, director of Freedom Forward, became the latest leader of a campaign group to press […]

Jamal Kahshoggi, a US-based journalist who frequently criticised the Saudi government, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was collecting papers for his wedding. Courtesy: POMED/CC by 2.0

By James ReinlUNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations is under growing pressure to scrap an event it is co-hosting with the private foundation of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has been linked to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Tuesday, Sunjeev Bery, director of Freedom Forward, became the latest leader of a campaign group to press the U.N. to cancel the Sept. 23 event, saying it would help repair bin Salman’s reputation over the Khashoggi murder.

The event, known as the Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum, is a partnership between the U.N.’s youth envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, and the Misk Foundation, a culture and education foundation chaired by bin Salman, who is better known as MBS.

“No one — especially not the U.N. — should be partnering with MBS or his personal Misk Foundation,” Bery told IPS.

“Saudi Arabia’s brutal crown prince is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Yemeni children. His thugs imprisoned leading women’s rights activists and murdered Jamal Khashoggi.”

Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, a campaign group, last week accused the world body of helping to “whitewash” MBS’s record; Mandeep Tiwana, from Civicus, a rights group, called the event “disturbing”.

The U.N. youth envoy’s office declined to comment on the row. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the world body had repeatedly issued “very strong statements … calling for accountability” in Khashoggi’s killing.

The Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum will take place in New York only 10 days before the first anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder on Oct. 2 last year, when Saudi government agents killed and dismembered the journalist inside the country’s consulate in Istanbul.

The CIA later determined that MBS had personally ordered the hit. Saudi officials, who initially said Khashoggi had left the consulate alive, now say the journalist was killed in a rogue operation that did not involve MBS.

Saudi Arabia’s mission to the U.N. did not answer requests for comment from IPS.

The four-hour workshop for 300 young people at the New York Public Library will occur on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and promote green themes, corporate responsibility and other aspects of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda.

It will feature Alexandra Cousteau, an environmentalist and granddaughter of French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau; and Bart Houlahan, an entrepreneur who promotes sustainable business practices.

Other speakers include Andrew Corbett, an expert on entrepreneurship at Babson College, Paul Polman, former CEO of consumer goods firm Unilever, and Ann Rosenberg, an author and U.N. technology expert.

Dr. Reem Bint Mansour Al-Saud, a Saudi princess and an envoy to U.N. headquarters in New York, who advocates for empowering women and development in the Gulf kingdom, will also speak at the workshop.

Khashoggi, a United States-based journalist who frequently criticised the Saudi government, was killed while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he was collecting papers for his wedding.

U.N. expert Agnes Callamard issued a report in June that described the assassination as a “deliberate, premeditated execution,” and called for MBS and other Saudi officials to be probed.

The Misk-OSGEY Youth Forum comes after years of tensions between the U.N. and Riyadh over the war in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a military coalition against the country’s Houthi rebels.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and caused led to a major humanitarian crisis.

“The crown prince and his violent government must be held accountable for their human rights crimes,” said Bery, who advocates for the U.S. to cut ties with Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes.

“Instead, misguided U.N. staff are absurdly giving the crown prince a public relations platform as he attempts to wipe away the blood of so many dead Yemeni children.”

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/u-n-criticised-link-saudi-prince-mbs/feed/0The Syrian Tragedyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/the-syrian-tragedy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-syrian-tragedy
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/the-syrian-tragedy/#respondWed, 21 Aug 2019 10:22:13 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162928As I often do, I recently discussed the Syrian Civil War with a friend of Lebanese origin. He is far from supporting the Syrian regime, which occupied his country of origin between 1989-2008. My friend assumes the Syrian government was behind the assassination of Lebanon´s prime minister Bachir Gemayel, who in 1982 together with 26 […]

As I often do, I recently discussed the Syrian Civil War with a friend of Lebanese origin. He is far from supporting the Syrian regime, which occupied his country of origin between 1989-2008. My friend assumes the Syrian government was behind the assassination of Lebanon´s prime minister Bachir Gemayel, who in 1982 together with 26 others were blown to pieces by a bomb planted at the headquarters of the Lebanese Forces. He also suspects Syria was behind the death of former prime minister Rafik Harari, who in 2005 was killed in a car bomb explosion. However, this does not make my friend an admirer of Israel or the U.S., which together with Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia meddle in Syria´s bloody internal strife. It is an almost impossible task to disentangle the mess of warring fractions guided by corrupt politicians, religious fanatics, liberal politicians, bandits, Mafiosi and/or foreign commercial and strategical stakeholders.

Credit: Javier Manzano

My friend and I talked about what we had learned about the Syrian Army, which is supported by pro-government armed groups like Hezbollah, a Shia militia backed by Iran. However, the most powerful ally of Bashar al-Assad, Syria´s current president, is Russia that with full military force on 30 September 2015 interfered in Syria´s internal conflicts. It is rarely mentioned that since 1971 the Soviet Union/Russia has an agreement with the Syrian Government to maintain a naval base in Tartus, actually its only naval facility in the Mediterranean region and Russia´s only remaining, military installation outside the former Soviet Union. Furthermore, in close-by Latakia Russia has established its biggest “signals intelligence base” outside Russian territory. 1 Apart from safeguarding its military bases Russia´s support to the Assad regime may be considered as a move to recast Russia as a decisive player in the region, reviving its image as a major rival to the USA in the management of global affairs.

USA has ever since the Syrian Arab Republic´s independence in 1946 been apprehensive of this nation that it perceives as an enemy to USA´s Middle Eastern allies – Israel, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Syria was once closely associated, and for a while even united with, Nasser´s U.S. hostile Eygptian regime and throughout the years it has maintained friendly relations not only with Russia but also with China and even North Korea. In an effort to demonstrate its strength and presence, as well as to bolster its claim of effectively suppressing ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) the U.S. is supporting the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (Rojava) through is Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR). The military operations of CJTF–OIR are coordinated by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and carried out by U.S. military forces supported by personnel from over 30 countries. 2 Turkey supports the so-called Interim Government, consisting of at least five armed sections/parties.

ISIL and its former ally, turned foe, the Al-Nusra Front, constitute other warring factions. Al-Nusra is a Salafist3 fighting force aiming at converting Syria into a full-fledged Islamic nation. Suffering from this mayhem are millions of civilians. I have met a few of them. Among my best pupils when I worked as a high school teacher in Sweden were two orphaned brothers from Aleppo and on the train to work I often talked to a former medical doctor from Homs who sustained his family by selling carpets. These friends and acquaintances experienced their adjustment to Swedish society as quite cumbersome, though they were grateful for escaping the Syrian inferno and not like millions of their compatriots having to suffer misery in refugee camps, or risking their lives during efforts to reach uncertain security in Europe.

I obtained my most profound and long-lasting impressions of Syria when I in 1978, together with some good friends, traveled through this nation by bus or hitchhiking. Everywhere, we were met with generosity and friendship. An unexpected discovery was that Syria, this vast territory of fertile plains, high mountains, and deserts between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, was virtually littered with remains of cities, palaces and temples erected by Accadians, Amorites, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, Armenians, Nabateans, Lakhmids, Ghassanids, Mongols, Kurds, Circassians, Mandeans, and Turkmens. A bustling patchwork at the crossroads between the East and the Mediterranean. Syrian cities had grown and become cosmopolitan hubs, wellsprings of culture, art, and philosophy. Here religions had been born and mixed in places like Ebla, Antioch, Emesa, Tyre, Sidon, Bostra, Palmyra, Baalbek, Dura-Europos, Damascus and Aleppo. Magnificent buildings had been left by Umayyads, Christian crusaders, and Ottomans.

Even ignorant youngsters like us discerned and appreciated this vibrant culture, visiting churches and mosques and while enjoying the exquisite Syrian cuisine we were able to converse with people in the cafés of Aleppo and Damascus, finding that some of them spoke English or French. However, we were also confronted with poverty and repression. Remaining with me is the sight of a legless man sitting in a wheeled box above a pool of urine while begging under the light of a lamp post in Aleppo. In a square in Damascus, we saw something looking like four lamp posts by which a wooden stage had been erected. When we asked what it was, someone explained that four ”criminals” had been hanged early in the morning, in full view of an interested congregation. The bodies of the executed men had been wrapped in sheets with their names, date of birth and a description of the crime they had committed. ”The stage” had been used by ”students” who had enacted their crimes. We also heard horrifying tales about oppression by the Assad regime, particularly in Aleppo people seemed to be opposed to the corrupt circle around the self-divinized president Hafez al-Assad, calling him al-Muqaddas, ”the sanctified one”.

Four years after our visit, the Syrian Army had in the town of Hama at the orders of Hafez al-Assad ”quelled an uprising” by the Muslim Brotherhood, destroying a large part of the city while killing an estimated 20,000 civilians.. 4 This was a premonition of the carnage and misery that was to follow.

By the beginning of the 1980s, Hafez al-Assad, who most of his life suffered from diabetes, felt that his health was deteriorating and thus began looking for a successor. His first choice was his brother Rifaat al-Assad, who when Hafez in November 1983 suffered a massive heart attack complicated by phlebitis announced his candidacy for president. This angered Hafez al-Assad who after recovering declared that he was not going to be succeeded by Rifaat. His brother answered by staging a failed military coup. Hafez al-Assad now began to groom his son Bassel al-Assad for the presidency, creating a personality cult around him. However, when Bassel in 1994 died in a car accident his father called back his other son, 29-year-old Bashar, from London, where he underwent postgraduate training in ophthalmology.

Bashar al-Assad´s fellow students have described him as a ”geeky guy engulfed in Information Technology”, reserved and softspoken Bashar avoided eye contact and appeared to be uninterested in politics. 5 Nevertheless, as soon as the apparently undistinguished Bashar had returned to Damascus his father sent him to the military academy at Homs. He toughened, rose in the ranks and ended up as a colonel of the elite Syrian Republican Army. When Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, Bashar assumed power, surprising everyone by making Syria’s ”link with Hezbollah – and its patrons in Teheran – the central component of his security doctrine”, 6 while he continued his father´s outspoken critic of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Meanwhile, the fragile network of tolerance between different ethnoreligious groups disintegrated, politicians and military commanders fought for power and influence, while foreign powers increasingly interfered in factional quarrels.

After the entire nation on 15 March 2011 became embrolied in a ruthless civil war, the age-old cities of Aleppo, Homs, and Hama have been totally destroyed; their mosques, palaces, souqs and quasbas, several of them world heritage sites, are in ruins. Worst than the irreversible damage wrecked on homes, world heritage and a multi-faceted and generally indulgent society is the incomprehensible suffering of individuals; men, women, and children, caught up in precarious situations they cannot control while being used as pawns in cynical power games. In March 2018, the death toll of the Syrian war was estimated at 511,000. 7 On the 4th of August this year, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) had 5,626.914 Syrian refugees registered 8 and estimated that 6.2 million individuals were internally displaced. 9 These are statistics, figures, though it is important to realize that every number stands for a human being. We may read and talk about the hardship affecting those who have survived the carnage – refugees and internally displaced persons – but is it really possible to discern the suffering affecting each and every one of them? Can we really not do anything to understand and help them?

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/the-syrian-tragedy/feed/0Are Jair Messias Bolsonaro and Donald John Trump a Menace to the Planet?http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/jair-messias-bolsonaro-donald-john-trump-menace-planet/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jair-messias-bolsonaro-donald-john-trump-menace-planet
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/jair-messias-bolsonaro-donald-john-trump-menace-planet/#respondTue, 13 Aug 2019 19:10:27 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162844We live in different worlds. The ones of friends, family and work colleagues. Worlds which are overshadowed by other, much bigger ones. Global spheres of international finance, politics, climate change, etc., contexts that might threaten our smaller circle of relationships; our family, our income, our general wellbeing, in short – our entire existence. However, even […]

We live in different worlds. The ones of friends, family and work colleagues. Worlds which are overshadowed by other, much bigger ones. Global spheres of international finance, politics, climate change, etc., contexts that might threaten our smaller circle of relationships; our family, our income, our general wellbeing, in short – our entire existence. However, even at those levels there exist small circles of acquaintances and associates able to make decisions that affect the entire humankind. Let me take one example – the regimes of U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Brazilian President Jair Messias Bolsonaro, which are menacing our global natural habitat.

Ten years ago, I flew across the Amazon Jungle, amazed by its immensity though also alarmed by scares where thick greenery had been cleared away and substituted by dismal remains of dead trees, or dry cattle pastures and soy plantations. Logging and mining are the greatest dangers to Amazonia since its exposed soil is generally old, weathered, acidic, infertile, and subject to compaction from intense solar radiation.

Within the framework of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) thousands of scientists and other experts write and review reports informing the work of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an endevour involving the governments of more than 120 countries. The IPCC, which in 2007 was rewarded the Nobel Peace Prize, was established in 1988. The U.S. Government was the main force for making the IPCC an autonomous intergovernmental body supporting a consensus between the participating nations.

At regular intervals, the IPCC presents comprehensive assessments on climate change and its impact on ecology, human society, and food production. In 2013, one of its reports declared that:

Climate change is occurring, it is caused largely by human activities and poses significant risks for – and in many cases is already affecting – a broad range of human and natural systems. […] Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Human influence on the climate system is clear. 1

Nevertheless, several influential world leaders and their sycophants refuse to accept unequivocal findings and warnings issued by the IPCC, among them the U.S. president, who continues to make badly informed, even mind-numbing statements, like:

My uncle was a great professor at MIT for many years, Dr. John Trump, and I didn’t talk to him about this particular subject [climate change], but I have a natural instinct for science, and I will say that you have scientists on both sides of the picture. […] Everything I want and everything I have is clean. Clean is very important — water, air. I want absolutely crystal clear water and I want the cleanest air on the planet and our air now is cleaner than it’s ever been. Very important to me. What I’m not willing to do is sacrifice the economic well-being of our country for something that nobody really knows. 2

While speaking about any scientific issue he does not know much about it is common that President Trump refers to ”Uncle John”, to whom he quite obviously did not speak about climate change, since Dr. Trump was a professor of engineering at a time when the phenomenon was hardly spoken of outside limited expert groups. 3 Donald Trump likes to refer to John Trump, who died in 1985, arguing that ”Dr John Trump at MIT, good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart”. The current U.S. president assumes he has superior genes as well:

I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain, my primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff. […] I’m a gene believer. Do you believe in the gene thing? I mean I do. I have great genes and all that stuff, which I’m a believer in. 4

On 8 August this year, the IPCC launched a 1,200-page Special Report of Climate Change and Land, highlighting that human activities directly affect more than 70 percent of earth´s ice-free land. A quarter of this land is already severely degraded. Five hundred million people are currently living in areas experiencing desertification, while agriculture continous to use 70 percent of the earth´s freshwater. Our planet´s vegetation currently absorbs 30 percent of CO2 emissions, which contribute to global warming, but the ongoing clearing of forests increases average world temperature at an alarming speed, while access to freshwater is constantly decreasing. During the last decades, the average temperature has increased by 1,53 oC. 5 This critical situation could probably be reversed if agricultural and forestry methods are drastically changed from a present state of overexploitation, characterized by excessive use of pesticides, nitrogenous fertilizers, mechanization, wasteful irrigation and other harmful practicies favoured by large-scale agricultural producers.

Let me return to Jair Messias Bolsonaro and his acolytes. The world’s largest tropical rainforest is currently under a lethal threat from President Bolsonaro, a powerful supporter of large-scale agribusiness he is complaining about foreign pressure to safeguard Amazonia. Bolsonaro is following in Trump´s footsteps, for example by threatening to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. His Minister of Foreign Affairs has called global warming a plot by “cultural Marxists”, while Bolsonaro declares that ”Amazonas is ours and ours alone”, accusing ”foreign NGOs” of intending to steal natural resources of its rainforest from Brazil and hand it over to European exploiters. Furthermore, he accuses indigenous groups of keeping Amazonia away from the Brazilian people, trying to maintain it ”at a prehistoric level”. Accordingly, Bolsonaro has withdrawn governmental support to FUNAI, the National Indian Foundation, which up until now has carried out policies related to indigenous people. He has also eliminated the Climate Change Division of the Ministry of Environment, as well as two departments that dealt with climate change mitigation and deforestation.

On 6 August this year, the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported that 4,700 km2 of the jungle had been cleared since Bolsonaro´s inauguration on January 1st and in June alone, deforestation had been 278 percent more than for the same month in 2018. Bolsonaro immediately fired INPE´s director, Ricardo Galvao, accusing him of being in the service of ”some NGO´s” and that he himself would not fall victim to any ”environmental psychosis”. 6

Bolsonaro appears to belong to the same breed as President Trump. He behaves like a narcissist obsessed by his own worth and righteousness. Bolsonaro´s regime is already after half a year threatening not only Brazil with a moral and ecological meltdown, but the entire world as well. On March 28th The Economist described Bolsanero´s government as being in a state of monumental confusion. Apart from the economic team, it is a warring assortment of retired generals, mid-ranking politicians, evangelical Protestants and far right ideologues. “Nobody knows where he´s going, what´s the course he´s setting,” says Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former president, of Mr Bolsanaro. “He goes forward then back, all the time.” 7

Despots like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong have proved that a single man and his acolytes can bring death, hardship, and devastation to millions of people. Remembering men like those and learning about the views, aspirations, and actions of people like Trump and Bolsonaro make it imperative for all of us to become aware of the craziness of these two leaders and the fatal consequences of their actions. All humanity must now join forces to support national and global efforts to save our planet.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/jair-messias-bolsonaro-donald-john-trump-menace-planet/feed/0The Nairobi Summit – Towards a Watershed Momenthttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/nairobi-summit-towards-watershed-moment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nairobi-summit-towards-watershed-moment
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/nairobi-summit-towards-watershed-moment/#respondThu, 08 Aug 2019 16:03:21 +0000Dr. Ida Odingahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162779In 2019 a female scientist created an algorithm that gave the world the first ever images of a black hole. Working with a team of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, a young woman led the development of a computer program that in her own words enabled them to “achieve something once thought impossible.” During this […]

In 2019 a female scientist created an algorithm that gave the world the first ever images of a black hole. Working with a team of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, a young woman led the development of a computer program that in her own words enabled them to “achieve something once thought impossible.”

Photo: Heshimi Kenya

During this same year, over 200 million women in developing countries will not have access to effective methods of contraception to delay or avoid pregnancy. Approximately 830 women a day will die during pregnancy or childbirth from preventable causes. And sexual and gender based violence including harmful practices like early marriage and female genital mutilation, will still plague millions of girls and young women. Girls and women denied basic human rights and robbed of their potential to achieve the impossible.

In 1994, the visionary Programme of Action was agreed to by 179 governments at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt. The Programme of Action recognized that reproductive health and rights, as well as women’s empowerment and gender equality, are cornerstones of healthy robust societies that promote the well-being of populations and economic and social development of nations. Since ICPD, governments, civil society, youth networks have all worked towards decreasing maternal deaths, eliminating harmful practices and promoting gender equality.

The global community is now gearing up to mark 25 years since the historic ICPD through the Nairobi Summit on the International Conference on Population and Development, ICPD25 which will be held from 12-14 November 2019 under the theme “Accelerating the Promise”.

I am proud that my country Kenya, will be hosting this important Summit, which is aimed at mobilizing the political will, financial commitment and community support we need to fully realize the ICPD Programme of Action.

Indeed, by the time we leave Nairobi, we must ensure that everyone has agreed to play their part in reaching zero unmet need for family planning information and services, zero preventable maternal deaths, and zero sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices against girls and women. Evidence shows that the benefits that would accrue from fulfilling the ICDP agenda would be far reaching in transforming lives and improving the wellbeing of families, communities, and nations.

Dr. Ida Odinga, EGH

In Kenya, significant progress in health care has been made with Universal Health Coverage(UHC) a top priority for the Government. Thanks to the leadership, passion and commitment of the First Lady of Kenya, Ms Margret Kenyatta through her Beyond Zero campaign there has been a significant drop in maternal and child mortality. We have to now go for zero deaths. Reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health is key to achieving UHC.

High rates of teenage pregnancy, take girls out of school and compromises their health. Young people face stark challenges in employment as 1,000,000 people enter a labor force that can only absorb 150,000 new entrants. Access to health services and information, school retention and quality education will help these young girls stay in school and lead healthy lives. These are among the issues that the Summit will address.

However, in order for the Nairobi Summit to be a game changer, we need to speak for those that can’t speak, speak for those who are not heard and to add our voices to those who continue to work for sexual and reproductive rights for all. We must reaffirm our commitments to the ICPD goals and Agenda 2030. We must absorb the lessons learned over the last 25 years and do better.

I am delighted that my country is partnering with UNFPA and the Government of Denmark to host the Nairobi Summit and reaffirm the global commitment to ICPD. This is a watershed moment as we are a mere 10 years away from our commitment to fulfill the SDGs.

I look forward to seeing all the participants in Nairobi and hope everyone will follow the proceedings of the Nairobi Summit and learn how we can all play a role in bringing about change and keeping the promise of ICPD. Ensuring that all women and girls can reach for the stars and achieve the impossible.

“I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.” 1

These were the words of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 22 May 1940 when he learned of individuals profiting because of the booming arms trade industry during the Second World War. Seven decades down the line, President Roosevelt’s warning against the rise of the military-industrial complex and war profiteers is more relevant than ever and a telling testimony that for many in safe places war means profit. But, should the pursuit of economic profit be allowed to supplant ethical considerations, especially when weapons often end up in the hands of terrorists, human rights violators and criminal governments?

There is no doubt that the global arms market remains a lucrative business. Arms trade raises numerous ethical issues both for the exporting and for the importing country. War profiteers operate with scant concern for ethical and moral considerations, being guided by the search for power or profit for their corporations. Those who produce and sell arms have been called “merchants of death.” 2 HH Pope Francis said it was hypocritical to speak of peace while fuelling the arms trade, which only serves the commercial interests of the arms industry. 3 It is of course the inalienable right of States to exercise their right to self-defence as stipulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and to maintain independent military strength to deal with periodic armed conflict or threats that may emerge. Experience shows that arms exporters fuel conflict and create an atmosphere not at all conducive to peace and development in the world. A business model the feeds on armed conflict, violence and instability must be banned in the 21st century.

According to recent statistics from the Stockholm Peace Institute, arms sales of the world’s 100 largest arms-producing and military services companies totalled USD 398.2 billion in 2017. 4 That is more than the nominal cumulative GDPs of South Africa, Denmark, Singapore, Egypt, Algeria and Malaysia, a group of countries which is home to more than 200 million people. Since 2002, annual arms sales have surged 44% and are expected to continue growing in the years to come. 5 In other words, international arms trade is “big business” and a vector for economic growth in some countries, reminiscent of John Maynard Keynes’ vision of ‘Military Keynesianism’.

In the Middle East, the irregular and black-market arms trade – estimated at USD 10 billion a year – have weaponised extremism and fuelled instability. Disturbing images of civilian infrastructure being bombed and destroyed by extremist groups are telling testimonies that the flow of arms and weapons continues to exacerbate violent conflict in the Arab region. This is particularly the case in Syria, Libya and Iraq where the supply of weapons to the warring sides has prolonged the fighting and adversely affected the civilization population. The rebuilding of societies affected by armed conflict and violence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is estimated at USD 250 billion. A price tag that the next generations in the MENA region will have to repay for decades to come.

In this connection, world civil society must take action to curb future arms proliferation in regions prone to armed conflict and violence. Governments and arms traders must commit to respecting and to fulfilling the provisions set forth in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights of the United Nations. 6 The aim should be to identify, prevent and mitigate as the case may be, the human rights-related risks of business activities in conflict-affected areas. Civilians should not have to bear the brunt, as they do now, of the devastating consequences of military conflict. The greed involved in the arms trade must be kept in check.

As foreseen in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the promotion of just, peaceful and inclusive societies rests on the ability of world society to promote a climate conducive to peace and sustainable development. According to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, the countries that are furthest from achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are in, or emerging from, armed conflict and violence. The best investment to peace and prosperity therefore rests on the ability of decision-makers and governments to curb arms trade, prohibit economic gains from war, armed conflict and human suffering and instead commit to rally for a world where peace and justice prevails. The simple motto for all should be “disarmament for development”. What is most needed is a conversion strategy that will gradually transform war economies into sustainable peace economies. 7

Blerim Mustafa, Project and communications officer, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Postgraduate researcher (Ph.D. candidate) at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester (UK).

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/moral-responsibility-arms-trade/feed/0Domestic Violence and the Role of Educationhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/domestic-violence-role-education/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=domestic-violence-role-education
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/domestic-violence-role-education/#respondThu, 08 Aug 2019 11:32:36 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162767Trying to teach and inspire youngsters is a daunting task. Many teachers tend to suffer from a harrowing, bad conscience, obliged as they are to follow routines, rules, and regulations set down by their employers while knowing that these are difficult to apply and provide with desired results. Worst is a nagging feeling of inability […]

Trying to teach and inspire youngsters is a daunting task. Many teachers tend to suffer from a harrowing, bad conscience, obliged as they are to follow routines, rules, and regulations set down by their employers while knowing that these are difficult to apply and provide with desired results. Worst is a nagging feeling of inability to reach out to the students. Most teachers want their pupils to be good learners, critically thinking individuals who feel gratified and keen to change things for the better.

Occasionally, I return to my original profession as a high school teacher. Long intervals between such experiences make it possible for me to perceive attitude changes among students and myself. When I two years ago had another stint of teaching in Sweden I found a new obstacle to students´ interest in direct social interaction and learning – smartphones. In many schools, they are now banned from lessons, though not from the one where I was working. Many of the teachers were quite young and belonged to the mobile phone generation. They explained that smartphones had become an essential part of their lives and instead of being banned they ought to be integrated into education.

Smartphones infringed on many students´ attention. Several felt forced to look at them over and over again – texting, checking things on the web, playing games, doing selfies, nothing of which had anything to do with school work. I found some of my pupils to be incapable of concentrating on a specific task, listening to me or even watch a movie for more than five minutes. No matter how exciting they originally had found the film, they soon felt an uncontrollable urge to switch on and check their smartphones. When I asked what could be so extremely urgent, they generally lied and said it was their mother calling, or that they had been alerted about some kind of emergency. However, I soon found out that several of the girls were checking out Kim Kardashian´s website, while boys often had become absorbed in some inane game, like directing a rolling ball through meandering tunnels.

Before my latest teaching experience, I had been happily unaware of Kim Kardashian´s influence on women’s´ lives, but now I know that she and other members of her family have a combined Instagram-following of more than 536 million and that Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a reality television series following the lives of Kim and her four sisters, is running on its 16th season. However, Kim´s coffee table book Selfish from 2015, presenting selfies she had taken over the time of nine years, ”flopped” – selling ”only” 125,000 copies. Apart from ”acting” in a reality show and posting entries on Instagram, Kim has a line of clothing and other items mirroring the Kardashians´”aspirational and over-the-top lifestyle”, celebrating a body image of slim waists, large breasts and hips, ”a hyper-feminised, high-glamour look that seems calculated to entice the male gaze, sexy rather than being fashionable,”1 while Keeping Up With the Kardashians pays hommage to a fake existence of staged worries, petty concerns and idle gossip, where ”having fun” equals expensive activities at luxury resorts and spas, or the planning of and participation in clamorous, superficial and glittering parties. Kim Kardashian´s influence cannot be ignored, her fame and wealth make even a notoriously bad listener like U.S. President Donald J. Trump willing to lend her an ear.

The Kardashian style, as the family´s approach to life is called in the TV-series, is reflected by an app that was immensely popular among many of my female students. It is a role-playing game in which participants are invited to impersonate an ”up-and-coming” Hollywood celebrity climbing a status ladder passing ”levels of stardom” from E to A, completing tasks like posing for magazines and going on dates. This while the more enterprising among my school-tired male students were engaged in complicated and violent role-playing video games like Grand Theft Auto V and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. It felt as if the entire school system was under a massive attack from commercial interests, which apart from being mind-numbing are cementing prejudicial gender roles.

Antiquated attitudes about gender roles among several of my students made me doubt if they had participated in an obligatory subject of the Swedish elementary school system – home and consumer knowledge, which for several years train boys and girls in managing household chores and childcare. No one who has received that training might claim to be unknowledgeable about elementary household chores. Furthermore, in Swedish schools, both boys and girls are trained in needlework, as well as metal- and wood handicraft. I find this approach highly commendable as it benefits a sense of responsibility and gender equality. However, these admirable gains may be counteracted by mass communication supporting bigoted gender roles that limit and predispose abilities and perspective of both girls and boys.

If human development is to be achieved, the best resolution of any nation would be to promote general wellbeing and prosperity by providing effective and affordable health care and education to all of its citizens, irrespective of gender, wealth and social standing. Furthermore, such education has to benefit gender equality and encourage personal accountability. Most of my students were well aware of the concept of human rights, i.e. their own rights, though they were often unaware that this concept includes human duties, i.e. concerns about the welfare of others.

I recently came to think of this after reading a well-written Italian novel Sei Mia: Un amore violento by Eleonora de Nardis, which describes the suffering of a mother of three under the brutal and degrading regime of a spouse, who furthermore is married to and sharing a family with another woman. I am convinced that this novel illustrated the suffering of women all around the world. Women who on their own carry the entire responsibility of running a home and taking care of children engendered together with an irresponsible man, who furthermore, as in Sei Mia, abuses, maltreats and controls the mother of his own offspring under the feeble pretext that this is his right as a man, assuming that his gender excludes him from cooking, childcare, and expressions of emotional care for his family, as well as compassion and responsibility for the wellbeing of others.

It is scientifically proven that domestic violence generally occurs when an abuser assumes he is entitled to behave as a selfish tyrant. A male perpetrator of domestic violence is often supported, accepted and even justified by his socio-cultural upbringing and ambiance. A background and attitude that tends to be shared by his victims, who are unlikely to report this kind of violence to authorities that often condone the abuser´s behaviour. Several legal systems make a difference between ”domestic” and ”common” law and it is quite common that it is up to a victim to report domestic violence, under the pretext that this cannot be done by an ”outsider”. An absurdity considering that it often proves to be fatal for a victim to even consider accusing a violent, capricious abuser who exercises total control and to whom she is entirely dependent.2 Such a state of affairs produces an intergenerational cycle of abuse in children and other family members, who are brought up to consider such abuse as acceptable. Attitudes that may only be changed through an obligatory education, which breaks down gender inequalities. Efforts that have to be combined with the strict application of laws penalizing domestic abuse, while safeguarding male responsibilities for support of their households, making it obligatory to participate in the care of their children, for example by guaranteeing not only maternal leave from work but paternal leave as well.

There is a direct correlation between a country´s level of gender equality and rates of domestic violence, where countries with less gender equality experience higher rates of domestic abuse. Domestic violence is an abominable crime that not only cripples the ability for victims to participate ihe creation of genern tal, social wellbeing, it also tends to destroy or frustrate children´s development as compassionate and progressive human beings. Apparently, has Swedish education had a beneficial impact on gender equality and when it comes to the condemnation of domestic violence. However, I hope the impact of stereotyped gender roles propagated by trendsetters and some influential video game developers will not be able to diminish such achievements.

On a cold night in December 2012, a ghastly crime was committed in New Delhi which stunned the world. Six men dragged helpless Nirbhaya-a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern- to the back of the bus and raped her one by one. As she kept fighting off her assailants by biting them, one of the attackers inserted a rusted rod in her private part, ripping her genital organs and insides apart. She died a few days later. One of the accused died in police custody in the Tihar Jail. The juvenile was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment in a reform facility, and subsequently released. The Supreme Court awarded the death penalty but legal complications have prevented its execution.

Farhana Haque Rahman

A gruesome case occurred in Rohtak, a town in the northern state of Haryana (India). In 2017, a 23-year-old woman was gang raped by seven men, killed and smashed in the face with stones to conceal her identity. Her mangled body was found with stray dogs picking at the remains.

In January, 2019, a 16-year-old girl had simply decided to go to her boyfriend’s birthday party. A week later, her body was found along a highway, her head and one of her arms chopped off. Her face may have been burned with acid. In her small town in eastern India, it is forbidden for a teenage girl to date, and the police believe the girl’s father arranged for her to be killed — supposedly to protect the family’s honour.

Just as gruesome is the story of the 30-year-old Fatima who reported to UNFPA in Cox’s Bazar in southeast coast of Bangladesh in 2017, “My sister was killed after gang rape in front of me, and they threw hot water on my body. I can’t sleep, my life is a nightmare, I can’t bear the pain of losing my sister.”

Worse, minor girls remain highly vulnerable to brutal rapes and murder. In May, the same year, a ten-month-old baby girl was allegedly raped by a family member in Jamnagar district of the western state of Gujarat. Cases of brutal rapes of minor girls abound in Bangladesh too. The rape and murder of 13-year-old Ayesha Siddiqua Sumaiya, living in Rangpur, is a case in point. A student of Class VII, she was alone in her home – her parents were at a religious function – when a gang swooped on the minor, raping and then strangling her to death.

Raghav Gaiha

Rapes reported to the police as sexual violence surged from 39 per day to 93 per day in India in 2013. In Uttar Pradesh alone, five rapes occurred in 36 hours. Even these are underestimations, for two reasons. One is the exclusion of marital rapes, which are not a prosecutable crime. No less important is the fact that barely 1 per cent of victims of sexual violence report the crime to the police.

Report on Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey 2015, Bangladesh, paints in vivid detail high incidence of different forms of violence against women. During 2014, the most common form of partner violence was controlling behaviour, experienced by more than one third (38.8%) of ever-married women, followed by emotional violence (24.2%), physical violence (20.8%), sexual violence (13.3%) and economic violence (6.7%). Rates of lifetime partner violence (any form) were highest in rural areas (74.8% of ever-married women) and lowest in city corporation areas (54.4%). Rates in urban areas outside of city corporation areas were 71.1%, slightly lower than in rural areas.

More than one quarter (27.8%) of women reported lifetime physical violence by someone other than the husband (non-partner) and 6.2% reported experiencing such violence during the last 12 months. Rates were highest among adolescents for both lifetime (30.9%) and last 12 months (11.2%) non-partner physical violence.

Most sexual violence in India occurs in marriage; 10 percent of married women report sexual violence from husbands. The reporting percentage is low in part because marital rape is not a crime in India. Adolescent wives (13–19 years) are most vulnerable, reporting the highest rates of marital sexual violence of any age group. Adolescent girls also account for 24 percent of rape cases in the country, although they represent only 9 percent of the total female population.

Barely 1 percent of victims of sexual violence report the crime to the police in India. Similar evidence is found for Bangladesh. Notions of honour are central to the discourse on rape. The rape of a daughter, sister or wife is a source of dishonour to males within the family structure. This deters the reporting of rape to the police, reinforced by a belief in the impunity of perpetrators, the fear of retaliation, and humiliation by the police through physical and verbal abuse.

One major problem with anti-rape laws is that their enforcement is feeble and painfully slow, and thus largely inconsequential as a deterrent to sexual violence.

Dominance and control over women are set in male attributes and behaviour (“masculinity”), regarded as a shared social ideal. Violence is not necessarily a part of masculinity, but the two are often closely linked, mediated by class, caste and region.

Interventions that address masculinity seem to be more effective than those that ignore the powerful influence of gender norms and systems of inequality. Effective women-focused initiatives strengthen resilience against violence by combining economic empowerment with greater awareness of rights and women’s relationship skills. Behavioural changes are, however, slower than changes in male attitudes.

In conclusion, although rise in sexual violence against women and girls is scary and abhorrent, there are grounds for optimism.

(Farhana Haque Rahman is Director General of IPS Inter Press Service; she is a communications expert and former senior United Nations official. Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Visiting Scholar, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA).

Scores of migrants and refugees have been desperately trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Credit: Ilaria Vechi / IPS

By Blerim MustafaGENEVA, Aug 1 2019 (IPS)

The migrant and refugee crisis has become a serious test for the unity of Europe as a political project. The inflow of destitute migrants and refugees has tested Europe’s political unity to an unprecedented extent. With a long-term solution to the migrant and refugee crisis nowhere in sight, the adverse impact of the current situation has the potential to unfold further and to give rise to a broader crisis with long-term implications, affecting Europe and the MENA region alike.

In his influential essay “The End of History?”, Professor Francis Fukuyama predicted that the universalization of the Western concept of liberal democracy, in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, would prevail and erase differences between peoples, societies, civilizations and world regions. Nevertheless, the manipulation of despair and the violent destruction of lives and assets in the Middle East have taken their toll in terms of the radicalization of youth. The re-emergence of populism in advanced countries continue to divide their societies. The situation is particularly striking in countries of Central and Eastern Europe that witnessed a surge in nationalist sentiments once the communist era came to an end and that did not have a colonial past. In Western Europe, the adverse impact of globalization and the financial crisis have given rise to the notion of a lost generation in which Europe’s youth experience greater degrees of impoverishment, inequality and unemployment. A political vacuum has therefore emerged, which has given rise to movements that anchor their ideologies on anti-globalization, unilateralism, protectionism and extreme forms of nationalism. Progress is being achieved to come to terms with its deadly sting, but populism in the West and extremism in the Middle East – spilling over into Europe – cannot be set against one another. The former is still – but for how long – predominantly peaceful in nature while the latter is generating political violence.

Populist parties are emerging as credible actors in light of the recent electoral successes in local and national elections. Their recipe for success: spread of fear, anger, hatred and xenophobia towards refugees and migrants in an attempt to confer legitimacy to their political ideologies. Right wing and populist parties in the West are on the offensive and are now threatening the democratic traditions of a continent referred to as the birthplace of democracy, liberalism and Enlightenment. It challenges the legitimacy of national governments and threatens to restore extreme forms of nationalistic reactions that constitute direct threats to peace, reconciliation and international cooperation. It remains a paradox that countries in Central and Eastern Europe – often the most vocal critics of the arrival of migrants and refugees – have one of the lowest percentages of people belonging to Islam. These are the countries that have benefitted most from inter-EU migration and from an open labour market. Populism, however, does not arise out of nowhere. Establishment political parties have catered to the wealthy and failed to address burning social issues, thus creating a vacuum into which political opportunists could move.

Another feature that is ubiquitous is the tendency to externalise responses to address the plight of people on the move. In this regard, fences and walls have been erected and borders sealed off in an attempt to outsource and externalise solutions to address the rise of people on the move. In addition to the notorious wall between US and Mexico, which will be made even more repellent, and to the no less notorious one cutting off the Palestinian Occupied Territories, border fences and wires have been erected between the borders of Spanish enclaves (Melilla, Ceuta)/Morocco, Slovenia/Croatia, Hungary/Croatia, Hungary/Serbia, Macedonia/Greece, Turkey/Greece and Bulgaria/Turkey. Hungary has also considered erecting a fence along the Hungarian/Romanian border in response to the influx of people on the move.

Although it is the sovereign right of every country to implement measures deemed appropriate to protect their national borders, these physical barriers can come in conflict with the right of people to seek asylum as stipulated in article 14, paragraph 1, of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (a right, however, not included in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), and in the 1951 Refugees Convention, which defines a refugee as a person outside his country of nationality who has a well founded fear of persecution if returned to his country of origin. Providing assistance and protection to refugees is, therefore, in line with States’ obligations under international law and not only with their moral duties to respond to the dire situation many desperate people are facing. In this connection, it is worth referring to Pope Francis’s tweet made on 18 March 2017 where he appealed to decision-makers to not “build walls but bridges, to conquer evil with good, offence with forgiveness, to live in peace with everyone.” Pope Francis has likewise urged societies “to welcome, to protect, to promote, and to integrate migrants and refugees”.

The origin of attempts in Europe to “externalize” solutions to the refugee and migrant crisis can be traced back to the 1990 Dublin Convention. The latter stipulates the right to deport migrants and refugees to the first country of arrival, primarily to Greece, Spain and Italy, which are the first European entry points for people on the move owing to their geographical location. Countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea therefore are faced with the burden of absorbing the migrant and refugee inflows from the MENA region. This approach has contributed to an unfair distribution and relocation system of migrants and refugees where countries neighbouring bordering Syria and Iraq and then European countries situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast are the most affected. In the report of the United Nations Secretary-General addressing large movements of migrants and refugees – submitted in April 2016 to the United Nations General Assembly – he regretted that “too often, responsibility for new arrivals lies with the authorities and host communities in the first country of arrival.”

The European Union (EU) has also attempted to work with neighbouring states to defuse the crisis and to externalise solutions to control the flow of people on the move. It appears that the EU has drawn inspiration from the Australian government that have established refugee camps in neighbouring countries such as the island state of Nauru to address the inflow of refugees. In this connection, an agreement was reached between EU and Turkey, in March 2016, which stipulates, inter alia, that Ankara accepts the return of illegal migrants entering Europe. In counterpart, the EU would commit to investing EUR 3 billion to support livelihood projects for returning migrants. A similar position has also been taken vis-à-vis another migratory transit country Libya, in which the EU is committed to supporting the endeavours of the Libyan government to detain migrants and refugees in confinement camps. In response to this practice, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein referred to the detention of migrants and refugees in Libya as “an outrage to humanity”.

Despite these attempts to outsource solutions to the migrant and refugee crisis, inflows of people on the move have not ceased as the main destination regions of migrants and refugees remain the advanced and developed countries in Northern Europe. In this connection, the migrant and refugee crisis is not sustainable in the long run either for Europe or for the Arab region. The rise of populism in Europe – which so far remains political in nature – and the rise of violent extremism in the Middle East – which is an immediate threat – endanger the long-term stability of both regions and has the potential to stir an even bigger migrant and refugee crisis in the future. The root-causes of the unprecedented flow of people on the move have multiple causes, which require a multilevel response. It is imperative that decision-makers recognise the multitude of factors that contribute to the forced displacement of people. Most importantly, peace and stability and a climate conducive to the development of and the respect for human rights must be restored. It is hard to imagine why refugees and migrants would return to their home societies if sustainable and alternative livelihood options are not in place to meet the individual and collective needs of peoples and societies, and if wars and armed conflicts continue unabated.

Blerim Mustafa, Project and communications officer, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Postgraduate researcher (Ph.D. candidate) at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester (UK).

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/migration-human-solidarity/feed/2Tanzania Detains Freelancer Kabendera over ‘Citizenship’http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship/#respondWed, 31 Jul 2019 09:00:53 +0000Committee to Protect Journalistshttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162657The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Tanzanian authorities to immediately release freelance journalist Erick Kabendera, whom police said is being investigated over his citizenship status. Dar es Salaam police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said at a press conference today that Kabendera was in custody and that police arrested him after the journalist failed to […]

Tanzania police say that investigative journalist Erick Kabendera is being investigated over his citizenship status. Courtesy: Amnesty International

By Committee to Protect JournalistsNAIROBI, Jul 31 2019 (IPS)

The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Tanzanian authorities to immediately release freelance journalist Erick Kabendera, whom police said is being investigated over his citizenship status.

Dar es Salaam police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said at a press conference today that Kabendera was in custody and that police arrested him after the journalist failed to obey a summons. Mambosasa said that Kabendera was being questioned about his citizenship and that police were working with immigration officials. Police yesterday denied knowledge of Kabendera’s case after the journalist was taken from his home by a group of men who refused to identify themselves, according to reports and CPJ research.

One of the journalist’s relatives, who spoke with CPJ on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said that the citizenship investigation was surprising because authorities had investigated his status before and “cleared him.” In 2013 authorities terminated a similar investigation into the journalist and his parents, calling it “ill-advised” and stating that the family’s citizenship was not questionable, according to a report by the privately-owned publication, The Citizen. In a blog post, Kabendera linked the 2013 investigation to attempts to muzzle him. The Citizen reported last year on several cases of authorities investigating the citizenship of government critics.

The relative said that no summons was issued and told CPJ they believe the arrest is in retaliation for Kabendera’s journalism, which has been unflinching in its assessment of President John Magufuli’s government.

“This rehashing of discredited claims about Erick Kabendera’s citizenship appear to be nothing more than a ploy by the Tanzanian authorities to justify their actions after public outcry over the manner in which the journalist was detained,” said CPJ Sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo. “Kabendera should be released immediately and this sham of an investigation terminated. Tanzanian authorities must stop harassing their critics.”

At the press conference this afternoon, Mambosasa said that Kabendera was being held at Central police station in Dar es Salaam. When family, colleagues, and lawyers tried to visit the journalist this evening, they were told he was not at the station and that they could not see him until tomorrow, Jones Sendodo, a lawyer affiliated with the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition and who went to the station, told CPJ. The coalition today filed a bail application that will be heard on August 1, according to Watetezi TV, which is associated with the coalition.

Tanzanian Inspector General of Police Simon Sirro and Mambosasa were unreachable on their phones today. CPJ’s messages asking for comment, sent this evening, went unanswered.

Kabendera has reported for several regional and international publications, including the British newspaperThe Guardian and the websiteAfrican Arguments. His most recent reporting in the regional weekly The East African covered alleged divisions in Tanzania’s ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, amid alleged plots within the party to block Magufuli from running for a second term.

Press freedom has drastically deteriorated in Magufuli’s Tanzania. CPJ has documented the use of suspensions, restrictive legislation, and intimidation to muzzle journalists. The freelance journalist Azory Gwanda went missing in 2017 and the government has yet to provide a credible accounting of his whereabouts. When asked about Gwanda today, Mambosasa told journalists that he could not provide details because it was necessary to keep investigations “secret” to protect evidence before it was brought to a court.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship/feed/0Free Speech and the Hong Kong Protestshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/free-speech-hong-kong-protests/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=free-speech-hong-kong-protests
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/free-speech-hong-kong-protests/#respondTue, 30 Jul 2019 08:56:39 +0000Jan Lundiushttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162637Sometime in the summer of 1974, I was leaning against the gunwale of the ferry between Calais and Dover, watching the moonlight streaming dark waters. When I turned to the left I found that a Chinese lady also looked out over the calm sea. What she told me changed my world view. In 1950, Sweden […]

Sometime in the summer of 1974, I was leaning against the gunwale of the ferry between Calais and Dover, watching the moonlight streaming dark waters. When I turned to the left I found that a Chinese lady also looked out over the calm sea. What she told me changed my world view.

In 1950, Sweden became the first “Western” nation to acknowledge the People´s Republic of China (PRC) and during the following decades this small country came to enjoy a ”favoured status” among PRC leaders. As a young man, after reading Swedish translations of Tales from the Swamps and The journey to the West, I had become fascinated by Chinese culture. At the time, the Swedish press and many of my teachers spoke enthusiastically about the Cultural Revolution, but I did not as so many of my fellow students join the Swedish-Chinese Friendship Association with the hope of visiting China.

By the gunwale, the Chinese lady now told me: ”Most of you Europeans have a rosy view of China.” I wondered: ”How come? I don´t know much about your country.” She smiled and answered: ”The People´s Republic is not my country. I´m from Hong Kong where we are cosmopolitans, citizens of the world, not like Mainland Chinese who are isolated and indoctrinated. Their Cultural Revolution, which you seem to admire so much, is a complete disaster.” She continued:

We live in a different world, though far too close to Mainland China. My father is in charge of the police´s dog handlers. One of their tasks is to find corpses that have been washed ashore. Hundreds of trussed and mutilated bodies are by the Pearl River brought down to Hong Kong. It was worse in 1968 and 1969, but they still appear. I´ve heard that mainland Chinese are paid 15 Yuan [USD 2.50] or more for each corpse they fish up from the river. People are killed en masse. Education is neglected, cultural heritage smashed to pieces, they burn thousand-years old manuscripts and mock the elderly.

That short meeting made me suspicious of acclaims and condemnations of entire nations. After returning to Sweden I read Simon Ley´s Chinese Shadows and understood that unreserved tributes to the ”Chinese system” offered by most members of the Swedish press and authors like Snow, Myrdal, and Suyin had to be read with caution. Later on, I met Chinese dissidents at Lund University and came to realize that the Chinese lady had told me the truth. It is estimated that between 750,000 and 1.5 million people were killed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1974).1 Millions more had been persecuted and forcibly displaced, while cultural and religious sites and artifacts were deliberately destroyed.

Much has changed since then, though when I now read about Hong Kong and hundreds of thousands of protesters crowding its streets I am reminded of the meeting at the Calais-Dover ferry. Protests were triggered by a proposed bill allowing for extradition of lawbreakers from Hong Kong to Mainland China, though they are now increasingly addressing concerns about Hong Kong´s independent staus. Hong Kong´s importance within the enormous PRC is shrinking. When Great Britain in 1997 handed over Hong Kong to China it´s GDP constituted around 20 percent of PRC´s economy, while it now is less than 3 percent.2 The economic growth of PRC has been extraordinary and it is now the world´s second-largest economy with a GDP at USD13.6 trillion, after the United States at USD20.4 trillion.3 Such power and wealth inspire PRC´s increasing efforts to make its mark as a sovereign superpower – economically, politically and culturally. When Xi Jinping in 2012 became Secretary-General of China’s Communist Party he launched a vision called The Chinese Dream. During the Party´s 19th Congress in 2017, Xi Jinping declared:

The mindset of the Chinese people has changed, from passivity to taking the initiative.
[…] We should pursue the Belt and Road Initiative as a priority [making] new ground by opening China further through links running eastward and westward, across land and over sea.4

The Belt and Road Initiative has, alongside ecological awareness and anti-corruption, become Xi Jinping’s signature project. Newly constructed, or improved, roads, ports, and railways will benefit China financially and connect it more closely with the rest of the world. A new Silk Road across Asia will be complemented with sea connections via the Malacca Strait, the coasts of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and East Africa and across the Red Sea, as well as the Arctic Sea.

Hong Kong remains a key hub for investment in and out of China, though it is gradually losing its unique position, both financially and ideologically. Hong Kong has its own legal system and its civil rights include freedom of assembly and free speech. However, not all the 70 members of the territory’s Legislative Council are directly chosen by Hong Kong’s voters, most seats are occupied by pro-Beijing lawmakers.5

When Hong Kong was returned to China it was done under a principle called “one country, two systems”, meaning that it would enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defense affairs. Most people in Hong Kong are ethnic Chinese, though a majority of them do not identify themselves as such, at least not in the manner of the Government of PRC, which proclaims that all people of Chinese lineage are Chinese citizens, even after renouncing their Chinese citizenship. In his 2017 speech Xi Jinping declared:

Blood is thicker than water. […]Any separatist activity is certain to meet with the resolute opposition of the Chinese people. […] We will never allow anyone, any organization, or any political party, at any time or in any form, to separate any part of Chinese territory from China! China will never pursue development at the expense of others’ interests, but nor will China ever give up its legitimate rights and interests. No one should expect us to swallow anything that undermines our interests. […] We must rigorously protect against and take resolute measures to combat all acts of infiltration, subversion, and sabotage, as well as violent and terrorist activities, ethnic separatist activities, and religious extremist activities.6

In spite of Bejing´s insistence that it honours “one country, two systems” most Hong Kong citizens now fear that they might lose much of their autonomy. A fear fuelled by, among other concerns, the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers/publishers, who eventually re-emerged in custody in China. This affair also affected the hitherto friendly relationship between Sweden and China. One of the booksellers was namely the Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, who in 1988 came to Sweden as a twenty-five-year-old exchange student. After the massacre in Tiananmen Square, he applied for political asylum and eventually became a Swedish citizen. In 2012, Gui Minhai was one of the founders of Mighty Current, which in Hong Kong published serious sociological studies, as well as sensational stories about the debauched private lives of influential Chinese Communist leaders. In 2014, Mighty Current bought a bookstore and began to sell regime-critical literature, attracting customers from mainland China.

17 October 2015, Chinese agents broke into Gui Minhai´s summer residence in Bangkok and brought him to PRC, where he was imprisoned. Gui Minhais´s family alerted Swedish authorities but it took more than four months before Swedish representatives were allowed to visit Gui Minhai in prison. He then declared that he out of his own free will had severed his ties with Sweden and did not need any Swedish support, a statement he repeated four days later on the Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television. Seven months later, Swedish representatives were again allowed to visit Gui Minhai and he once more declined their help. However, after being transferred to house-arrest in his original hometown, Ningbo, Minhai apparently maintained contacts with Swedish authorities and when he by two Swedish diplomats in January 2018 was brought to a medical exam in Beijing (he suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) Minhai was forcibly abducted from the train by plain-clothes police officers.

It has been assumed that Chinese reluctance to release Gui Minhai, even after public confessions and the fact that he suffers from a deadly disease, might be the sensitive content of a book he was writing and planned to publish, The Collapse of Xi Jinping in 2017, which is said to contain damaging information about Xi Jinping´s private life.

Swedish activists accuse their government of a disgraceful submission under PRC´s economic power. In February this year, Sweden´s ambassador to China, Anna Lindstedt, invited Minhai´s daughter Angela Gui – who was born in Sweden, is a Swedish citizen and studies in the U.K. – to Stockholm. Lindstedt told Angela that she was going to meet with Chinese businessmen who had ”a new approach” to her father´s case. At a hotel in Stockholm Angela was offered a Chinese visa and an excellent job opportunty in PRC, apparently a means to silence her advocacy for her father´s release. Angela refused to co-operate7 and when the meeting was exposed in the press it was revealed that Lindstedt had acted without approval from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and she was eventually replaced as ambassador.

The employment of approximately 60,000 Swedes is currently, directly or indirectly, dependent on Chinese companies. During the first half of 2018, Chinese companies invested USD 3.5 billion in Sweden – the highest foreign investment in a European nation. For obvious reasons, the Swedish Government is cautious when it comes to upsetting the feelings of the rulers in Bejing and it is a pity that such concerns make it reluctant to criticize PRC´s abuse of human rights.8 However, let us hope that PRC´s recent openness to the world, it´s massive investments in the development of poor nations and great interest in ecological issues eventually will be accompanied by an acceptance of free speech and support of human rights, not only globally, but also within PRC and Hong Kong.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/free-speech-hong-kong-protests/feed/0Unidentified Men Take Erick Kabendera from Tanzanian Homehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/unidentified-men-take-erick-kabendera-tanzanian-home/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=unidentified-men-take-erick-kabendera-tanzanian-home
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/unidentified-men-take-erick-kabendera-tanzanian-home/#respondMon, 29 Jul 2019 22:40:53 +0000Committee to Protect Journalistshttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162617The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned for the safety of investigative reporter Erick Kabendera who was forcefully removed from his home today, and called on Tanzanian police to disclose whether they have him in custody. Kabendera’s wife, who was cited in The Citizen, said that about six people who claimed to be police took […]

]]>The post Unidentified Men Take Erick Kabendera from Tanzanian Home appeared first on Inter Press Service.
]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/unidentified-men-take-erick-kabendera-tanzanian-home/feed/0The Role of Education in Breaking down the Walls of Ignorancehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/role-education-breaking-walls-ignorance/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=role-education-breaking-walls-ignorance
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/role-education-breaking-walls-ignorance/#respondFri, 26 Jul 2019 11:53:32 +0000Blerim Mustafahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162585Promoting peaceful and inclusive societies through education

Access to education is key to facilitate the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies. Photo credit: Getty Images

By Blerim MustafaGENEVA, Jul 26 2019 (IPS)

Education constitutes an important building block to enhance inter-faith dialogue, cultural exchange between ethnic and linguistic groups, counter violent extremist narratives and promote peaceful and inclusive societies. The founder of Modern India, Mahatma Gandhi, once said:

“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”

Yet current trends tend to be in denial of this reality. At no time has there been greater need than now for sensible strategies aimed at lifting the veil of ignorance that shapes public opinion. Ignorance and fear are leading to violence and social fragmentation. disrupting the harmony of diverse, multi-ethnic societies. The world is currently witnessing the proliferation of xenophobic populism and white supremacists in advanced societies, but also the rise of Islamophobic demagogery. There is also a wave of extremist violence in all parts of the world. The cause of these phenomena may differ but all feed on the rejection of the Other.

Of great concern is, of course, the exposure of frustrated or marginalised youths to terrorist and violent extremist groups. They lack religious or ideological awareness and fall easy prey to media and social media manipulations. The doubts and frustrations that they experience are not being addressed adequately and hit the wall of unresponsive societies. And, as in all social movements, there are individuals or groupings which take advantage of this latent anger for their own vested interests. They harness it with the objective to achieve positions of power through violence or through undermining national unity.

How can one counter extremist narratives through education? Is the latter the ultimate silver-bullet to address prevailing toxic narratives fuelling extremist and violent ideologies?

Indeed, moving towards social harmony starts with a first step: that of educating our youth. In times of community fragmentation, equal access to education can open vital spaces for inclusiveness, reconciliation and dialogue. Education is a particularly effective means for promoting inclusive and equitable societies, as it targets one of the most receptive and unbiased audiences: the youth. Mrs. Irina Bokova, the former Director-General of UNESCO, noted in this sense that “the risks and opportunities we face call for a paradigm shift that can only be embedded in our societies through education and learning.”

There are numerous paths for addressing this social ill that spreads in both advanced and developing countries. In countries affected by the surge of populism and extremist violence, special efforts should be made to improve the education system. Through education, youth and other vulnerable social segments of societies can be empowered to move beyond biases and preconceptions that they may have inherited. This will help to promote the immunity of youths against the rise of extremist forces that we see at present times. It will help the traumatized among them to come to terms with the horrors witnessed from foreign invasions or extremist violence. In rich and advanced societies, it will aim at rolling-back the devastating impact of hate speech. At the same time, we must recognize that the rise of populism responds in part to the inertia of established political parties that for much too long have failed to address social issues.

Communities should likewise celebrate both the commonality of values and the specificities of practices of diverse faiths as expressions of enrichment through pluralism. It is necessary therefore to explore models of education rooted in religious teachings and in inclusive secularity. Through their thoughtful intertwining, one can contribute to the emergence of a society that embraces religious plurality and harnesses unity in diversity. Archbishop and former Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu once said: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.”

Moreover we should call on religious authorities and lay leaders of different faiths and cultures who bear the responsibility to correct the unscrupulous misrepresentations of values and beliefs. They must unite and harness the collective power of religions and creeds for peace-building. Religious leaders can play an important role in providing counselling to address radicalist thoughts and to promote the values of tolerance, coexistence and dialogue. They must refute the stereotyping of caricatural differences between religions and cultures that breed hatred.

For a variety of historical and modern-day political reasons, emphasis has been put on the differences existing between faiths and value systems. It remains the duty of religious leaders to show that, in themselves, religions are not problematic. What is problematic is their distortion to serve political purposes and vested interests. The synergies of providing access to education built on common universal values makes a strong contribution towards the realization of social stability and peace. In the joint declaration on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together signed on 4 February 2019 in Abu Dhabi by HH Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar His Eminence Ahmed el-Tayeb, we are reminded of the “importance of awakening religious awareness and the need to revive this awareness in the hearts of new generations through sound education and an adherence to moral values and upright religious teachings.”

Indeed, the great religions of the world bear a unique fundamental message of peace, tolerance and compassion. Only through dialogue between populations and regions of all cultures and religious faiths can the bridges of understanding and tolerance be built.

Blerim Mustafa, Project and communications officer, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Postgraduate researcher (Ph.D. candidate) at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester (UK).

On 22 July 2019, Kenneth Roth published an article in Publico, Lisbon, entitled: “UN Chief Guterres has disappointed on Human Rights”.

This essay lampooning Antonio Guterres is not a voice “against the tide” but very much mainstream – and demonstrably skewed. Major NGOs headquartered in rich advanced countries and enjoying generous funding from the Establishment may not always think “out of the box” and are as likely, as are the interest groups which support them, to politicize human rights and therefore to disappoint rights holders in smaller or weaker countries.

While they do contribute to exposing situations of human rights violations worldwide , they are not exempt from biases which reflect the structure of their central governing bodies or the cultural environment within which they operate. They cannot arrogate to themselves the sole legitimacy to speak in the name of the civil society of many countries , and when they claim to do so, they may disappoint rightsholders, particularly in the developing countries, whose priorities are frequently different from theirs.

Kenneth Roth’s bludgeoning of the UN Secretary General in this regard is yet another expression of grandstanding and even of a measure of arrogance. HRW’s criticism of China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, would be more persuasive if the organisation addressed with the same intensity the egregious violations of human rights in many other countries

Sober analysis and stocktaking are necessary to determine whether and to what extent the priorities and agendas of NGOs’s like HRW are set by the overall interests of the established power-structures and multiple elites in many countries. Kenneth Roth’s article expressing disappointment at the human rights performance of Secretary General Antonio Guterres fails to identify the root causes of human rights violations.

His admonitions have little or no preventative value, and do not formulate constructive recommendations such as, for instance, the provision of advisory services and technical assistance to many countries that need it and have asked for it.

HRW’s “naming and shaming” strategy has been inconclusive at best because “naming and shaming” depends on the authority of the “namer” and the impartiality of the methodology. Kenneth Roth’s bludgeoning of the UN Secretary General in this regard is yet another expression of grandstanding and even of a measure of arrogance. HRW’s criticism of China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, would be more persuasive if the organisation addressed with the same intensity the egregious violations of human rights in many other countries.

For instance, Mr. Roth does not mention the denial of the right of self-determination to millions of people, the retrogression in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights (prohibited by the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the looting of natural resources and degradation of the environment by transnational corporations and their neocolonial schemes, the impunity enjoyed by politicians who engage in aggressive wars and by paramilitaries and private security companies, the devastating human rights impact of blockades by source countries and economic sanctions on the populations of Gaza, Syria, Iran and Venezuela, which have caused and continue to cause tens of thousands of deaths.

The politicization or as we now witness with concern, the“weaponization” of human rights is taking the world on a slippery slope. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)was adopted in 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Malik, René Cassin and others spoke of human dignity and the inalienable rights of human beings, but article 29 of UDHR also reminded us that “everyone has duties to the community”.

Indeed, what is most necessary is global education in human rights, including the human right to peace, education in empathy and solidarity with others – compassion, not predatory competition in “the human rights industry” on a “holier than thou” ticket.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should not be expected to act as a Human Rights NGO. This high office is not that of an unaccountable activist. It is neither that of a general that can blast any state at will nor is it a secretary that has to be subservient to the prevailing powers that be.

That high official must recognize the reality of the power balance that he cannot fundamentally alter but must strive with obduracy and at times courage to stretch the international community towards more compliance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations. Most importantly this means the promotion of peace through conflict-prevention, good offices, impartial mediation, disarmament and yes, human rights. When all diplomacy fails and only then may “naming and shaming” become an option. But it is a default option and a sign of diplomatic failure.

In the experience of both of us as Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council, we have delivered on our mandates, not by openly challenging the authority of states or claiming to teach them lessons in human rights but by giving quiet diplomacy a chance .

This is how one of us together with another Independent Expert facilitated a lifting of the sanctions on Sudan and this is how we are again currently engaging with protagonists of other conflicts. We have succeeded in confidence-building and contributed to the release of detainees. Persevering and discrete advocacy bears fruit.

We want a SG that puts values above politics in human rights matters and this is, in our opinion, what Guterres is doing. We have a Secretary General that can speak for truth and can at least listen to the narratives of the smaller and weaker states who have no access to the world media and whose action is distorted by biased reporting.

Of course the murder of Khashoggi is a tragedy because beyond the tragic loss of a human life, it is the freedom of expression that is targeted. But Kenneth Roth does not mention the thousands of migrants whose lives end in the liquid graves of the oceans because saving them at sea is becoming a criminal offence in some « enlightened » nations.

Are there different values attached to life according to the « exploitability » of its loss for political aims? We do not think that the Secretary General should go down along this road, even if this may cause disappointment in some quarters.

We would be really concerned if the Secretary general were to follow the path of selective indignation advocated implicitly by Mr Roth, because he would lose the moral leadership that we all, people of good will, can identify with across the world. THAT would be a major disappointment.

We welcome in Antonio Guterres a Secretary General who does not hesitate to call a spade a spade, a SG who promotes peace and does not stoke conflict, who challenges unilateral economic sanctions, who supports the Right to Development1 and places the Secretariat of the United Nations in its service. We welcome a SG who, together with the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, are engaging all of humanity in the noble task – day by day – of implementing civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights in larger freedom – and in good faith.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/human-rights-watch-disappoints-human-rights/feed/0The Precipitous Barbarisation of Our Timeshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/precipitous-barbarisation-times/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=precipitous-barbarisation-times
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/precipitous-barbarisation-times/#commentsTue, 23 Jul 2019 10:51:51 +0000Roberto Saviohttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162526When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong. From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would not happen in a normal world. An English porn […]

When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong.

From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would not happen in a normal world. An English porn beauty with 86,000 followers on social media has put bottles of the water she bathes in on sale at 30 pounds a bottle and has sold several thousand bottles.

Roberto Savio

A survey in Brazil found out that 7% of citizens believe that the earth is flat (40 percent of American schools teach that the world was created in a week, according to the Bible, so there cannot be ancient civilisations) Another survey, this time of members of the British Tory party, who seem likely to elect Boris Johnson as prime minister (not exactly a triumph of reason) are so in favour of a “hard” Brexit that they do not care if this means the exit of Scotland and the end of the United Kingdom. Finally, in order to win election, US president Donald Trump has made racism one of his banners and, in a country of immigrants, this has given him an increase of 5 points in opinion polls.

There are so many signs of barbarisation that they would fill a book… and, as Euripides famously wrote: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

It is not a popular task, but we have to look at the reality and observe that, in the most scientifically and technologically developed period of history, we are living in times of precipitous barbarisation.

Social inequality has become the basis for the new economy. People have now lowered their expectations and are prepared to work part-time in a precarious job, where young people (according to the International Labour Organisation) can hope for a retirement pension of 600 euro a month. This has been accepted by the political system. We even have a study from Spain according to which, in the present housing market, nearly 87% of people need 90% of their salary just to rent a house.

Today, for many, a salary means survival, not a dignified life. The new economy has developed the so-called gig economy: you work to distribute food, but you are a co-entrepreneur without any of the rights of an employee, for an amount that will never allow you to marry. Children have grown accustomed to look at phenomena such as poverty or war as natural. And now politics are not based on ideas but on how you can successfully exploit the guts of the people, waving banners against immigrants (when we are witnessing a rapid fall in the birth rate) and splintering countries between ”We” who represent the people and “You” enemy of the country. The United States is the best example, where Republicans consider Democrats enemies of the United States. And this brings us to a central question: have Trump, Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and company not been elected democratically? And they are the symptom or the cause of the “populocracy” which is replacing democracy?

It is not possible to offer a sociological or historical study here. Let us just use a bite: we have gone from the Gutenberg era into a new era – the Zuckerberg era.

Those who greeted the arrival of the Internet with enthusiasm also did so because it would democratise communication and therefore bring about greater participation. The hope was to see a world where horizontal communication would replace the vertical system of information which Gutenberg made possible. Information was, in fact, a support for states and business that used it to reach citizens, who had no recourse to feedback. With Internet, people could now speak directly throughout the world and the propaganda which accompanied its arrival was not considered relevant: it is not important to know, it is important to know where to find It. Well, we have all the statistics on how Internet has affected the general level of culture and dialogue.

The attention span of people has declined dramatically. The majority of Internet users do not stay on an item more than 15 seconds. In the last five years, book volumes have been shortened by 29 pages. Today, articles longer than 650 words are not accepted by columnists’ services. The last meeting of editors of international news agencies decided to lower the level of news from the level of 22 years to that of 17 years. In Europe, the percentage of people who buy at least one book a year now stands at 22% (in the United States it is now 10.5%). According to a recent study in Italy, only 40% of the population is able to read and understand a book. In the same country, 13% of libraries have closed in the last ten years. A very popular transmission in Spain was ”59 seconds” which saw a number of people debate round a table; at the 59th seconds their microphones would disappear. Today, the dream of a TV interviewer is that the person interviewed will give a shorter answer than the question. Newspapers are for people over forty. And there is a unanimous complaint about the level of students entering the university: not all are free from mistakes of orthography and syntax. And the list could continue practically ad infinitum.

The problem of barbarisation has major relevance for political participation. The Gutenberg generations were accustomed to dialogue and discussion. Today, 83% of Internet users (80% under the age of 21), do so only in the virtual world they carved out for themselves. People of Group A gather only with people of Group A. If they come across somebody from Group B, they insult each other. Politicians have been able to adjust rapidly to the system. The best example is Trump. All US newspapers together have a circulation of 60 million copies (ten million those of quality, both conservative and progressive). Trump has 60 million followers who take Trump’s tweets as information. The do not buy newspapers, and if they watch TV it is Fox, which is Trump’s amplifier. No wonder that over 80% of Trump’s voters would vote for him again. And the media, which have lost the ability to offer analysis and cover processes, not just events, take the easy path. Let us follow famous people and make the famous more famous. Analytical journalism is disappearing. In the United States it exists thanks to grants … in every European country, there are few quality papers left, and the largest circulation goes to tabloids which spare their readers the effort of thinking. The Daily Mirror in Britain and Bild in Germany are the best examples.

Internet has made everybody a communicator. This is a fantastic achievement. But in this increasing barbarisation, people also use the Internet for transmitting false information, stories based on fantasy, without any of the quality controls that the media world used to have. And artificial intelligence has been taking over, creating many false accounts, which now interfere in the electoral process, as was proven in the last US elections. We have to add to this that the algorithms used by the owners of the Internet aim to trap the attention of users in order to keep them as much as possible. This month, El Pais published a long study entitled “The toxic effects of YouTube”, where it shows how its algorithms push the viewer to items that are of fantasy, pseudoscientific and of great attraction.

This is due to the fact that the owners have become fabulously rich by transforming citizens into consumers. They find out our identity, and they sell it to companies for their marketing, and also for elections. Those owners have unprecedented wealth, never achieved in the real world: not only in that of production, but even in the world of finance, which has become a casino with no control. The entire world of production of services and goods, man-made, is now close to a trillion dollars a day; that same day, financial flows reach 40 trillion dollars. Jeff Bezos ‘s divorce gave his wife 38 billion dollars. That is equal to the annual average income of 20,000 dollars of 19 million people. No wonder that 80 individuals now possess the same wealth as 2.3 billion people (in 2008, they were 1,200 individuals).

According to historians, greed and fear are great engines of change in history. That was also true in the Gutenberg era. But now, they have triggered a combination of both in a short period of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the doctrine of liberal globalisation arrived with such strength that Margaret Thatcher (who with Ronald Reagan ushered in the new vision of individual profits and elimination of social goods) famously talked of TINA: There Is No Alternative.

The entire political system, including Social Democrats, accepted riding a system of values based on greed and unfettered competition at individual level, at state level and at international level. It took twenty years to understand that the poor have become poorer, and the rich richer, and that states have lost much of their sovereignty to multinational corporations and the world of finance. It is worth noting that, in 2009, in order to save a corrupt and inefficient financial system, the world spent 12 trillion dollars (the United States alone, 4 trillion). Since that rescue, banks have paid the impressive amount of 800 billion dollars in penalties for illicit activities.

The financial crisis of 2009 has triggered a wave of fear. Let us not forget that until 2009, there were no sovereignist, populist, xenophobic parties anywhere, except for Le Pen in France. Soon old traps such as “in name of the nation” and “the defence of religion” were resurrected by politicians able to ride fear. A new scapegoat – immigrants – was found and populocrats are now undermining democracy everywhere.

Populocracy is the new wave. Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ushered in a new language, and that language has now been updated by Salvini, Trump and so on. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are the new medium and now the medium is the message. The old elite had not found a new language.

The Zuckerberg era is an era of greed and fear. Zuckerberg is now attempting to create a global currency, the Libra, to be used by his 2.3 billion users. Until now, states were the only entities able to emit money, a symbol of the nation. Zuckerberg’s currency is based entirely on the Internet and will have no control or regulations. In case of a default, we will have a world crisis without precedent. In the Gutenberg era, this was not possible.

But who has made able Jeff Bezos to give 38 billion dollars to a former wife? Who has elected Trump and Salvini and company, who speak on behalf of the nation and the people, and turn those who do not agree into enemies of the nation and the people, creating an unprecedented polarisation, accompanied by an orgy of revolt against science and knowledge, which have supported the elite, and must now be put aside for the good of people.

This process of barbarisation should not obscure an old proverb: every country has the government it deserves. It is called democracy. However, the traditional elite has no code of communication with the new era. The answer will come from citizen mobilization.

A young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, has done more with her stubbornness to raise awareness about impending climate change than the entire political system. Even Trump (albeit for electoral reasons) has now declared that climate change is important.

Today, there many “points of light“ appearing in the world. The elections in Istanbul are a good example, as are the mobilisation in Hong Kong, Sudan and Nicaragua, among many others. Let us hope we will reach a point where people will take the reins of the process and awake the world from the precipitous course of barbarisation. Even Thomas Hobbes concluded that humankind will always, soon or later, find the right path, and give itself good governance. He thought that an elite would always be able to lead the masses.

Well, elites are now the Greta Thunbergs of the world.

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development.. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

If they pay for it, men tend to believe they have the right to do anything to a woman’s body. You pay for your own entertainment without a thought about who you are paying and what cause you are supporting. Money is used as an excuse for and a means to oil a machinery that generates lots of profit while keeping pimps and other perpetrators out of the reach of the law.

Jeffrey Epstein is a generous benefactor of world-renowned scientists and has intimate ties with powerful men like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as star lawyers like Alan Derschowitz. This multi-millionaire has recently been charged with sex trafficking, prompted by investigative reporting by Julie Brown. In November last year, she published in Miami Herald a three-part series exposing a vast sex trafficking operation – 80 victims were identified, some as young as 13 at the time of the alleged abuse. Furthermore, Brown revealed a government cover-up that in 2008 made it possible for Epstein to get away with an exceptionally light sentence. A “non-prosecution agreement” was secretly negotiated by prosecutor Alexander Acosta, who provided Epstein immunity from federal prosecution. After that Epstein apparently continued his sexual misconduct. Ironically, Acosta was by President Trump appointed as United States Secretary of Labor, among other tasks responsible for combatting sex-trafficking.1

How could a sexual predator of children year after year avoid being convicted for his crimes? Can wealth and influence be an answer? Soon the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will hopefully release 2,000 pages of documents connected with the Epstein case, revealing sexual abuse by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders.”2 The current President, Donald Trump, now declares:

I wasn’t a big fan of Jeffrey Epstein. That I can tell you. I didn’t want anything to do with him. That was many, many years ago. It shows you one thing — that I have good taste.3

However, in 2002 Trump stated, in a rather revealing manner, that Epstein was a terrific guy, a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.4

The case of Jeffery Epstein, as well as that of another child abuser, George Aref Nader, reveal an outrageously low bar when it comes to sexual child abuse by wealthy and well-connected offenders. Nader, a businessman, and liaison between U.S. politicians and the Arab States of the Persian Gulf has over the years repeatedly been charged with sexual exploitation of minors. During Trump´s presidential campaign Nader did at various occasions meet with the future president´s closest associates, allegedly siphoning financial support from the Middle East. On June 3, Nader was arrested by federal agents for ”bestiality and possession of child pornography.”

Such wealthy child abusers are just the tip of an iceberg. In most European cities you may find ”provocatively dressed” women lining the thoroughfares. Most of them have, after being lured from their homes in Eastern Europe or Nigeria, been forced into prostitution by pimps who lurk in the shadows, or over smartphones control their sex slaves. Even if there are many lucciole (“fireflies”, Italian slang for street prostitutes), their numbers cannot be so overwhelming that they might explain why police and authorities are so utterly incapable of saving these victims of organized crime.

One reason for the inertia may be that human trafficking is a lucrative business. In 2017, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that 3.8 million persons were globally trapped in forced sexual exploitation, twenty-one percent of them being children under the age of eighteen.5 Annnual profits from this sex trade were in 2015 approximately USD 100 billion.6

Profits per victim are highest in forced sexual exploitation, which can be explained by the demand for such services and the prices that clients are willing to pay, and by the low capital investments and low operating costs associated with this activity. With a global average profit of US$ 21,800 per year per victim, this sector is six times more profitable than all other forms of forced labour.7

Most migrant prostitutes live in a world of misery and violence unknown to most of us. One of countless examples is the fate of Maria, a Romanian girl who was working as a prostitute in Spain. After her “rescue” she told a journalist that you’re alive but you’re not really existing. Not one of the men who paid to sleep with me asked me if I was there out of choice, or whether I wanted to be doing this. They didn’t care either way. People always ask: “Why didn’t you just run away or go to the police?” but they don’t know what they’re talking about. You can’t just stop a random person on the street and ask for help, because someone you love could get killed. The police in Romania are often corrupt. You think, why should it be different here?”8

Maria had been brought from Romania to Spain by a boyfriend she thought was bringing her there on a holiday trip. He drove her over the border using their EU residency cards and within 24 hours she was on the streets. Maria was told she had to pay off a debt of €20,000 before she could go back home. The traffickers threatened to kill her mother or sister if she did not pay off her debt and while she was under their control they hit her with hundreds of tiny charges; payment for clothes, rent for the corner where she worked, for condoms and sanitary towels. If she did not bring back enough money, she was beaten. This is the sordid reality for hundreds of thousands ”sex workers” around the world and you might imagine the suffering of minors forced into a world like this.

Jeffery Epstein is by New York prosecutors indicted on old and new sex trafficking charges, Acosta was forced to resign as Labor Secretary, while George Aref Nader is in a Virginian jail awaiting his trial. Are these signs that something is about to change? Hopefully, though it remains doubtful if there is any real commitment to end prostitution and sexual abuse of minors. For example, Italian law states that anyone who practices prostitution or invites to it, within a public place is punishable with imprisonment and a fine from 200 to 3,000 euros,9 though in a town like Rome the scantily dressed young women waiting for customers have not disappeared from the streets, on the contrary – their presence seems to have increased during the last years. In Spain, prostitution was decriminalized in 1995 and its domestic sex trade is currently valued at USD 26.5 billion a year, with hundreds of licensed brothels and an estimated workforce of 300,000.10

The inhibited exploitation of children and young women must be condemned and banned from society. There is no valid excuse for early marriages and sexual exploitation of minors. Wealthy and influential decision-makers covering up and even partaking in such abominable crimes against humanity must be exposed and shamed. But how?

As in all transactions, trafficking and sexual exploitation of children depend on demand and supply. When Sweden in 1999 introduced a ban of the purchase of sexual services, punishing offenders with fines, or imprisonment. The idea was that if there is no demand, there is no prostitution. Furthermore, a gender equality perspective was emphasized: buying access to another person’s body is about power, usually men’s power over women. A truism reflected by organized crime, where women and children end up as commodities to be bought and exploited. Defenders of prostitution may assert that it should be up to you if you want to prostitute yourself. However, such an argument evades the repugnant, sexual exploitation of defenseless children and ignore the glaring fact that prostitution and human trafficking are inevitably linked. Of people currently in prostitution in Sweden, three out of four are women and girls coming from poor countries.11 Prostitution cannot be reconciled with a demand for human rights. A Government believing in the equal value of all people cannot accept prostitution and even less so sexual exploitation of minors. For the vast majority, prostitution is a consequence of either poverty or violence.

It has been widely debated whether the Swedish Sex Purchase Act has been efficient. Many claim that it, together with the internet and harsh immigration laws, has made prostitution invisible by bringing it indoors and hidden within a criminal underworld, making life even worse for trafficked women and children. Nevertheless, it is a fact that Swedish attitudes towards prostitution have changed after 1999. When the Sex Purchase Act was introduced 32 percent of Swedes supported a ban against sex purchase, while in 2017 almost eighty percent supported it.12 This might be a result not only of the law but also due to an increased realization that gender equality and education may counteract prostitution and abuse of minors. However, the most effective remedy for sexual exploitation is probably general wellbeing, as well as equal and strictly applied rights for all.

On 8 July, Bosco Ntaganda was by the International Criminal Court (ICC) found guilty of crimes against humanity. The 41-year-old rebel leader, nicknamed The Terminator, had ordered his fighters to “target and kill civilians”, kidnap children to be brought up as soldiers and girls to become sex slaves, while personally partaking in the crimes. The Court had gathered evidence from 2,000 survivors from the rampage that Ntaganda and his army ran through the north-eastern Congolese region of Ituri, where beginning in 1999, 60,000 people have been murdered by warring rebel armies. Eighty witnesses testified directly during the court proceedings, thirteen were “experts” and the rest victims.

The International Criminal Court is an intergovernmental tribunal with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals accused of committing crimes of genocide (the intentional destruction of a group of people), crimes against humanity (mainly violations of the UN Charter),1 war crimes (mainly violations of the Geneva Conventions), and crimes of aggression (when a person plans, initiates or executes an act of aggression using state military force violating the UN Charter). The IIC has in great detail specified these crimes and has since its establishment in 2003 indicted 44 individuals, some of them influential, national leaders – former presidents like Sudan´s Omar al-Bashir and Ivory Coast´s Laurent Gbagbo and Uhuru Kenyatta, who recently was re-elected as Kenya´s president. The International Criminal Court is controversial, particularly since it is at a nexus where politics/ideologies merge with individual guilt.

Jurisprudence has since the ruthless European wars of the sixteenth century discussed the existence of a natural law dictating how humans have to behave towards one another. The general agreement was that if no natural law could be proven it was up to each Government to judge criminals in accordance with local legislation. For several hundred years, the pre-eminent political institution was the national State and it was free to apply state-sanctioned violence and punishment. However, in a world where the entire humanity is threatened by international crime, terrorism, and climate change, laws exclusively limited to nations can no longer be valid.

That state-supported atrocities do not recognize national borders became evident during World War II, when moral and geographical boundaries were ignored and even despised. After the War, it was almost universally agreed that some kind of global/natural law had to be applied to safeguard all humans from horrors caused by vicious regimes. In 1948, a non-binding Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly urging all nations to promote a number of human, civil, economic and social rights, while asserting that the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family are the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.2

The Declaration was adopted almost unanimously. The only dissidents were Stalinist Soviet Union, Apartheid-governed South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, nations well aware of the fact that any declaration of equal human rights was contrary to their politics. Criminal refusals to acknowledge an “inalienable” duty to respect human rights became apparent during the Nuremberg Trials and those staged by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, during which victorious powers judged abominable crimes committed by individuals serving the vanquished governments.

The defendants could be divided into three groups; those who were afraid, those who followed orders, and those who actually believed in the twisted ideologies of the regimes they had served. Defense attorneys declared that servants of the victorious powers – USA, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union – had committed acts just as bad, or even worse, than those perpetrated by minions of the Nazi regime and the Japanese Empire. Judges ruled that such arguments could not whitewash any personal guilt. However, one problem remained – can a few individuals be punished for crimes committed, or approved, by thousands of “law-abiding” citizens? It was argued that if the damaged nations of Germany and Japan had to be healed and re-built, the victors had to avoid causing distress and anger by convicting too many of the ”willing executioners”. Murderers and rapists were thus welcomed back into society and continued to serve as administrators, policemen, medical doctors, and teachers.

One example among many – so-called Einsatzgruppen were responsible for mass killings of the “intelligentsia” in German-occupied territories, as well as political commissars, partisans, and above all Romani people and Jews. Together with Romanian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian auxiliaries 3,000 German and Austrian soldiers did between 1941 and 1945 execute more than 2 million people. The scale of the killings was almost unbelievable – the massacre at Babi Yar lasted for two days during which 33,770 Jews were killed, the massacre in Rumbula also lasted two days and resulted in 25,000 victims. After the close of World War II, 24 senior leaders of the Einsatzgruppen were charged with crimes against humanity. Fourteen death sentences and two life sentences were handed out, while four additional Einsatzgruppen leaders were later tried and executed by other nations.3 More than 800,000 members of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS), an ”elite” that had sworn an oath of ”complete obedience to the Führer” survived the war. Many thousands of them were prosecuted for crimes against humanity, but only124 were convicted.4 This meant that thousands of cold-blooded murderers went unpunished and could resume a quiet life.5

The International Criminal Court is supported by 134 nations, though so far only 107 have ratified the statutes. Seven countries do for various reasons not approve of an international criminal court – China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the United States, and Yemen. Israel’s opposition stems from the fact that “the action of transferring population into occupied territory” is included in ICC´s list of war crimes. The U.S. fears that if its citizens participate in crimes against humanity in foreign countries they run the risk of being convicted by a court that does not accept the excuse that they served U.S. interests. The Trump Administration is openly opposing the Court, imposing visa bans on ICC staff in response to concerns that an investigation of U.S. nationals may be opened in connection with war crimes committed in Afghanistan. In October 2016, after claiming the Court was biased against African states, Burundi, South Africa, and the Gambia announced their withdrawal. However, following Gambia´s last elections that ended the rule of Yahya Jammeh, this nation rescinded its withdrawal notification, while the High Court of South Africa ruled that a withdrawal would be unconstitutional.6

Like war criminals judged in Nuremberg and Tokyo, Bosco Ntaganda pleaded not guilty, declaring:

I was informed of these crimes, but I plead not guilty. I have been described as “The Terminator”, an infamous killer, but that is not me. I am a soldier … I am not a criminal.

7

During the trial, survivors described several massacres. For example, one carried out close to a Hema village. Hema was a specially targeted ethnic group. Ntaganda and his soldiers brought 49 captured villagers to a banana plantation where they were slaughtered with
sticks and batons, as well as knives and machetes. Men, women, children, and babies were found in the field. Some bodies were found naked, some had hands tied up, some had their heads crushed. Several bodies were disemboweled or otherwise mutilated.

Rwandan-born Bosco Ntaganda has a long and bloody career. As a teenager he participated in the slaughter of Rwandan Tutsis, only to end up in the ranks and files of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) headed by the Tutsi Paul Kagame, current president of Rwanda. Some years later we find Ntaganda fighting for the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC), serving as deputy chief of the general staff of Thomas Lubanga, who in 2012 became the first person convicted by the ICC and sentenced to 14 years in prison.8

Bosco Ntaganda is just one example of ”murderers among us” who has been and are protected by world leaders and other decision-makers who all over the world make use of their services and thus become accomplices in their crimes. It is high time for them and the rest of us to assume responsibility for crimes against humanity. It is not only perpetrators who are guilty of atrocities, but supporters and onlookers are also accomplices. In the words of Primo Levi, a great author and survivor from Auschwitz´s hell:

We must remember that these faithful followers, among them the diligent executors of inhuman orders, were not born torturers, were not (with few exceptions) monsters. They were ordinary men. Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.